Port City War Games
by TacMaster8
Summary: In the middle of the night, Class 1-A is called together for a surprise trip. It's time for their final exam, where they will be shipped off to an abandoned city to play a massive game of Capture-the-Flag against Class 1-B. Anything goes, and the class will need to use everything at their disposal to beat their rivals. (PG-13 language, manga events alluded to, but not important)
1. Rude Awakening

**_All Class 1-A students: please report to the entry gate immediately!_**

Half asleep, Midoriya Izuku groggily rolled over. Had he imagined his homeroom teacher's deadpan voice just then? He grumbled and rolled back into his sleeping position.

 ** _All Class 1-A students: please report to the entry gate immediately!_**

No, the voice was real. Midoriya rubbed his eyes and checked his watch. 1:01 AM. What was Aizawa up to now?

He felt peeved at being woken up in the middle of the night, but Midoriya also felt a little bit of excitement at the unexpected turn of events. He quickly dressed in a weather-appropriate hoodie and jacket and put on his signature red sneakers before walking downstairs and out the door.

At the UA gate, Midoriya recognized five of his classmates: Tenya Iida, Shouto Todoroki, Tokoyami Fumikage, Momo Yaoyorozu, and Mina Ashido. All of them looked just as confused as he felt (with the exception of Todoroki, who just looked bored, as usual, and Mina, who looked perky, as usual).

"Do you guys have any idea why we're here?" asked Midoriya. Todoroki shrugged.

"I hope it's quick, said Mina, shivering in the winter air. "I didn't think to get dressed like you guys did." Midoriya noticed that his pink-skinned classmate was wearing flannel pajamas and slippers.

"I can create a jacket, if you want," said Yaoyorozu to Mina. Mina nodded in gratitude as the class vice-president pulled a puffy purple jacket from her bare arm like a magician's handkerchief. But Midoriya knew that unlike the handkerchief in the common illusion, Mina's new jacket was _actually_ created from thin air.

Tokoyami quietly looked off into the sky.

"No moon tonight," the bird-like boy mused. "Maximum darkness."

Iida was the one to finally answer Midoriya's question.

"My apologies, Midoriya. I unfortunately do not know why we've been called down" said Iida, formal as ever. "If anyone were to discern the reason for our impromptu awakening, it would be you."

" _Hmm_ ," Midoriya mumbled. " _If it were an emergency, like a fire, Aizawa-sensei should have said so in his announcement. He loves to keep us on our toes when it comes to our heroics curriculum, so we're probably going to be some sort of training exercise. But our final exams are only two weeks away. Speaking of finals-_ "

"Quit mumbling, BASTARD!" Midoriya was cut off by a sharp blow to the back of his head. He recognised the harsh voice immediately. He turned around to face his unofficial rival, Katsuki Bakugou. Eijiro Kirishima, their mutual friend, trailed closely behind Midoriya's assailant. The redheaded boy gave an apologetic wave and smiled at Midoriya.

"Oh… um, hi, Kacchan!" said Midoriya, weakly. Bakugou sneered at his affectionate nickname.

"Hello… DEKU!" Bakugou's words were filled with even more malice than usual. "Which one of you fuckfaces started this!?" He turned to Todoroki. "Don't tell me your stupid fire half got out of control!"

Midoriya quickly intervened. "Actually, none of us know why we're here. We were just discussing why Aizawa-sensei would call us outside like he did."

"Fucking annoying," Bakugou growled.

"Hey, Sero!" Kirishima called out to his friend. Slowly, more of Class 1-A began to file out of their shared living space expressing varying degrees of exhaustion.

"Deku!" a bubbly voice called out. Midoriya turned to face his brown-haired friend, who he knew used his demeaning nickname with good intentions. "What's going on?"

Midoriya shrugged. "I think it's some sort of surprise heroics test." Since the culture festival, Ochako Uraraka had grown out her bob-like hairstyle to resemble the hair of her upperclassman idol, Nejire. It suited her well, he thought. Not that it mattered. While she seemed nice and innocent on the surface, Midoriya knew his friend could kick his ass if he voiced his personal thoughts about her appearance.

Not that she _would_ , necessarily, but it was better to play it safe, he reasoned.

"Mon brrrr." They all turned. The speaker, Yuga Aoyama, had also forgotten to get dressed, and he was shivering in nothing but pajamas and his utility belt. Bakugou snickered, but Midoriya remained silent, remembering that his friend needed the belt to control the volatile lasers that shot out of his navel. "Might it be too late to run inside and get my jacket?"

"Yes." The group turned, startled by the voice behind them. It was the hero-turned-teacher, Shota Aizawa, otherwise known as Eraserhead. "A real hero must always be prepared, lest they suffer the consequences."

Discreetly, Yaoyorozu began to pull another jacket like Mina's out of her sleeve for her shivering classmate.

Iida's hand shot up into the air: "SIR! May I ask why you called us all down here at such a late hour?"

The teacher ignored him. "If this is everyone, I guess I should tell you why you're here."

"WAIT!" It was Kyoka Jiro, a girl with earlobes shaped like AUX cords. "Where's Bolts-for-Brains?" She was referring to their classmate Denki Kaminari, who was notably absent.

"Oh, shoot, he's probably sleeping through the alarm," said Kirishima, sheepishly. "I'll go wake him."

Aizawa grumbled. "Hurry. Your classmates can fill you both in."

"Yes sir!" Kirishima gave a thumbs-up before turning and sprinting back towards their dormitories.

"Okay. Welcome to the practical portion of your final exam."

"WHAT!?" the whole class shouted in unison.

"But, teacher!" wailed Mina." I forgot to study!"

"Idiot." The teacher sighed. "It was meant as a surprise. Before now, none of you knew this would happen."

"Oh," Mina said, shamefaced, remembering Iida and Midoriya's conversation. "Right."

Bakugou eyed his classmates hungrily. "This time, I will kick all your puny asses and win!" While he was practically a genius, the boy's aggressiveness always blocked out his redeeming qualities when it came to competitions. And to Bakugou, everything was a competition.

Aizawa continued: "For the next few days, you and your classmates will be working _together_ as one team." Bakugou deflated; the boy would rather work alone.

"More often than not, to stop high-profile villain groups, professional heroes need to collaborate with other agencies to investigate said villains and determine their weaknesses before striking. Some of you already have experience with this process."

Midoriya saw Ochako exchange glances with Tsuyu Asui, their classmate whom Ochako had interned with. Midoriya recalled how Sir Nighteye used this team-up strategy to take down the Yakuza boss Overhaul. He deeply missed his internship with the pro-hero.

Aizawa ignored his panicking class. "While your grade will be heavily influenced by your class's success or failure in this activity, I will also assess your individual performances. You will be graded based on your teamwork, the appropriate usage of your respective quirks, and the effectiveness of your strategies."

Iida raised his hand again before blurting out: "But teacher, if I may ask, why are we out here at 1:22 in the morning? Wouldn't this exam be executed more efficiently in one of UA's designated training areas?"

Aizawa pretended to ignore the boy again. "I woke you up to give you a much-needed edge." He stepped aside and gestured to a UA coach bus parked behind him. "We will be taking this bus for a short ride to our exam's location. Get on."

Aizawa boarded the bus and took his place in the driver's seat. As if on cue, Kirishima emerged from their dormitory pulling a blond-haired boy by the arm.

"Hey, man, _why are you doing this_?" Kaminari protested.

"Didn't you hear the announcement? On the intercom?" Kirishima answered. "Sensei wants us outside for some reason. He gestured toward the bus. "And now we're late."

The two boys arrived to see their class in varying states of excitement, nervousness, and tiredness. Iida was stiffly motioning for the students to form two orderly lines as the rest of the class ignored their president and crowded onto the bus. Kirishima tapped Midoriya's shoulder.

"What did we miss?"

"Not much," answered the green-haired teen. "Aizawa was pretty vague." As they boarded the bus, Midoriya filled the duo in on what was happening.

"So it's some sort of group strategy game, huh?" asked Kaminari.

"Yeah." Midoriya looked out the window. They were heading west, towards the port. Earlier that day, the entire coastal area had been evacuated due to an impending tsunami.

He started mumbling. " _We will have to stop sometime before we reach the coast, so that means we'll be in the Shimizu-ku ward. But won't the ward be empty? And dangerous? As far as I know, UA doesn't have any facilities here, so is it a location unknown to us? Why is this whole excursion shrouded in mystery?_ "

After fifteen minutes of driving, Aizawa parked the bus next to a plain-looking office complex. Even if it wasn't pitch black, the four-story building would have been easily missable in this urban area filled with similar buildings.

Their teacher stood up. "I guess it's time for me to explain the details of this exam." He pointed to a red banner, illuminated by the dim interior lights of the bus. "You are Red Team. This is your flag. Protect it. At the same time, try to find Blue Team's flag and take it back to this building, your base."

Tsuyu Asui perked up. "I'm starting to get it. Our exam will be a game of Capture the Flag."

Aizawa smiled. "Exactly. Except instead of a field, you have the entire ward to navigate. Thanks to a certain UA teacher, Shimizu-ku ward is empty, so you can use your quirks as if you are pro heroes. The area is roughly ten square kilometers. If you can restrain an opponent with 'capture tape' you can bring them to the 'jail' portion of your base." He held a spool of white electrical tape. "The opposing team's flag will be stored in their base, which will be a normal building hidden in plain sight, just as yours is."

"So if Class 1-A is Team Red then…" Yaoyorozu's voice trailed off.

"Your opponents will be Class 1-B."

Midoriya grimaced. Although they never got as much media attention as Class A had, Class B were every bit as capable as Class A, and they bore a grudge against the more popular class.

 _This will be tough_ , he thought.

"This will be easy!" Bakugou pounded and explosive fist into his hand. "We can beat those losers, no problem."

Aizawa ignored the boy as Bakugou's classmates sent him irritated looks for his outburst. "Aside from the location of their base, everything about their exam is identical to yours. Above all, this will be a test of strategy. I can't tell you any more."

"Wait! Sensei!" Midoriya shouted. He had a question nagging at his mind.

His teacher sighed. "What is it, Midoriya?"

"How will we make sure villains won't attack us like they did at the training camp?"

Aizawa shifted uneasily of his feet. "There are no guarantees, but you all have your cell phones, right?"

Everyone nodded.

"You can use them to make emergency calls. Your phones will be sending data to back to UA. They will track your location, as well as the contents of your messages. We will be keeping tabs on you, so we'll know if you get kidnapped. And don't even think about calling anyone for outside help, or you'll fail."

Midoriya felt uneasy, but he nodded. He felt like there was more to the story that his teacher wasn't telling him.

Aizawa looked to the class. "If that's all, than get off the bus and take your flag with you. As a class, you're alone on this, so stick together and listen to each other." He looked at Bakugou, who scowled. Then he looked back at the class, who were murmuring to each other as they started to file out of the bus. "The game starts at 8:00 today."

"Hold up," Kaminari said as he walked by. "If it starts at 8:00, then couldn't we have waited for a normal time to wake up? Don't tell me Class B is still sleeping soundly right now…"

Aizawa grinned. "They are, but I figured you could use the extra six hours for strategizing. Or you could sleep. I don't care."

Before his classmate could cuss at his teacher, Midoriya grabbed Kaminari by the arm and pulled him off the bus. Midoriya, personally, would not sleep at all that night. A plan was already forming in his head…

* * *

 **Back at UA...**

Principal Nezu stared at the holographic monitor in the middle of the conference room. The screen showed a map of the entire Shizuoka Prefecture. Twenty blue dots were clustered around UA, which was located about 20 kilometers inland from the Pacific Ocean. Class A's base was closer to the water, northwest of the city's bay. Class B's base would be on the peninsula on the south side of the port.

Class B's base was surrounded by water on three sides, so it was naturally more defensible, but it was also stood out more on the narrow strip of land. Nezu chuckled, subconsciously running through strategies in his head. The biggest advantage would go to the team who found the other team's base first. The question was: how to find it?

As Nezu was running through mental simulations, Aizawa walked into the conference room.

"Up late, I see," mused the rodent-like principal. "Or should I say early, considering it's 2:30 AM?"

"I wanted to keep my class on its toes, and I wasn't tired, anyway," said the Erasure Hero. "I got some sleep yesterday afternoon."

"Weren't you supposed to give a lecture to the Senior class?"

"No," the teacher answered quickly. He decided to change the subject: "Is this really a good idea?"

"Is what a good idea?"

"Using the students as bait."

The principal shifted in his seat uncomfortably. "It's not entirely like that. This exam's main purpose is to serve as a teamwork exercise and a way for us to evaluate our students' practical skills. If, by chance, a League of Villains member finds them, we'll have a pro hero ready to take them in. With me, you, Vlad King, and two other teachers on duty, the Shimizu-ku Ward is the second safest place in Japan, after UA, of course."

"Additionally, the students know about the trackers on their phones, but the nano-devices we injected into their blood are unknown to everybody but the UA teachers. We won't lose them."

Aizawa lightened. "I guess so." His train of thought shifted to the game. "Have you come up with a winning strategy yet?"

Nezu beamed. "Twelve of them." He tapped his head with his paw. "You just have to think of life like a game of chess. One move will lead to another, which will lead to another, and so on, until somebody wins! Now, I'll tell you all the details if you'd like to stay for some tea…."

Without saying a word, Aizawa turned and left the room, leaving his boss bewildered. But the principal once again focused on the red dots clustered on the screen.

"Now, will Class A come up with one of my strategies? Or will they come up with something completely new?" Nezu's nose twitched in jittery excitement. "I just can't wait to see!"

* * *

 **Thus ends the first chapter of my first story. Expect another chapter soon! There will be more action from all of Class A in the future, so stay tuned!**

 **If you want help visualizing the city, look up "Shimzu-ku Ward Japan"**

 **Thanks for reading, and thanks for any positive/constructive feedback you might have! I'm always looking for ways to improve my writing, so leave a review if you have anything to say!**


	2. Two Command Rooms

**I'd like to rectify a mistake I made in the last chapter. As someone pointed out, I said Yaoyorozu created Mina's jacket out of "thin air," when she really creates it using matter from the food she eats. Sorry for the misinformation.**

* * *

After their teacher drove off with the bus, Class 1-A filed into the concrete building. "Oh, crap!" Mina facepalmed. "Don't tell me we forgot Toru!"

"I'm right here," said the girl in question. "I sat across from you on the bus." Yaoyorozu could tell from the direction of the voice that Hagakure was standing right next to Mina.

Toru Hagakure would have been like any normal girl her age, if it wasn't for the fact that her entire body was perpetually invisible.

Mina blushed a deeper shade of pink. "Oh, I thought that seat was empty." Another realization dawned on her. "Hold on, how are you not wearing anything?"

"This is how I sleep!" said Hagakure. "Besides, I just have to be near Todoroki, who will keep me warm with his left side."

Eighteen deadpan glances shot over to the half-ice-half-fire boy, but if Todoroki was embarrassed, he did not show it.

" _Careful where you swing your tail_ ," Rikido Sato whispered to his friend, Mashirao Ojiro. Ojiro nodded, stifling a laugh.

"So are we going to ignore the fact that we're in a tsunami zone?" asked Hanta Sero. "Every instinct of mine is telling me to run."

Yaoyorozu answered: "The way Aizawa spoke suggested that the tsunami was more of a convenience than a hindrance. I think the UA teachers planned this all out."

Iida nodded. "I know Power Loader has the ability to create earthquakes and explosions. Maybe he's behind it all."

"So you're saying our teachers are behind the tsunami?" asked Sero. "UA does not hold back, do they? Blowing up model towns is one thing, but evacuating a whole city…"

The class entered the building's lobby, which took up the whole first floor. The lobby looked like, well, a lobby. It had a few couches and a front desk. _Normal is good_ , Yaoyorozu thought. _Less likely for Class B to distinguish this place as our base._

The second floor housed two rooms: the girls' bunks and the kitchen. Sato checked the pantries and the refrigerator, finding prepackaged foods like soup and hot pockets as well as ingredients like flour, milk and sugar.

"We have enough packaged food and ingredients to feed an army." He looked at the class. "Which is what we are, I guess. I can make some cookies, later, if you want." The girls squealed in delight. They all knew Sato made the best desserts ever.

Meanwhile, someone was causing a commotion in the girls' room. It was Minoru Mineta, no surprise.

"Remove yourself from the bed this instant!" commanded Iida, his arms furiously gesturing. "Do you possess any self-respect?"

"No," Mineta answered, hugging a bed. He was stuck to the mattress by two sticky purple spheres, which he had detached from the top of his head. Mineta looked ridiculous, but Yaoyorozu knew from experience that once something (like a bed, or a person) had touched one of his spheres, it was impossible for it to get unstuck.

"Looks like I'm stuck here for the night. One of the girls will have to sleep with-" He shouted in surprise as the mattress was lifted into the air by Ochako. After she had degravitised the mattress, carrying the weight of Mineta's tiny body was an easy task.

"Unhand me, woman!"

"Not a chance!" yelled Ochako. "Now, does any of the boys want to trade mattresses with me?"

"I got you," said Mezo Shoji, walking up to the third floor, where he assumed the boys' bedroom was. Ever since Shoji and Mineta had teamed up for the UA sports festival, Shoji had felt obligated to look out for the victims of his classmate's escapades.

The class followed Shoji and Ochako upstairs to the third floor. Here, the boys' quarters housed thirteen beds. Shoji lifted a mattress from the nearest bed as Ochako put Mineta's mattress in the empty frame. Shoji handed the empty mattress to Ochako with an apologetic look in his eyes.

"Shoji, you filthy traitor!" protested Mineta.

"Try something like that again, and you'll be sleeping on the roof," Ochako huffed. Mineta shivered and pretended to fall asleep.

The other room on the third floor was labeled "STORAGE," and it was a walk-in closet with five spools of capture tape a few first aid kits, and a bunch of metal suitcases.

"These boxes hold our hero costumes," said Midoriya, remembering the suitcase he brought to Gran Torino's office for his workplace experience. Their costumes, which were designed to augment the students' powers, would certainly come in handy.

The fourth floor housed two rooms. The room labeled "JAIL" was an empty room with a few benches and a full bookshelf, and the room labeled "COMMAND ROOM" was a brightly lit rectangular room with a huge conference table and twenty chairs. A giant map took up one of the large walls, while a big smartboard took up the wall opposite. The third wall had a cylindrical hole in it labelled "FLAG," where Iida placed the red flag.

"Let's get some sleep and meet here by 7:00," Yaoyorozu suggested. "We all need rest." The class nodded in agreement and began to file out the door.

"I'm going to stay up and do some planning, if anyone wants to join," Midoriya announced. "I'll be in bed shortly."

Ochako looked impressed at her friend's dedication, but Yaoyorozu wasn't as excited. "Don't overexert yourself," she said, sternly. "We need you awake tomorrow." Midoriya nodded.

"I'll stay up with you, Deku!" said Ochako.

"Great!" Midoriya answered, excited. "Two heads are better than one! So I was thinking, what if we used Google Earth to find buildings like this one, and then started to weed out..." he continued his rant as Yaoyorozu left the room.

* * *

The next morning, Yaoyorozu was disappointed, but not surprised, to see the unwitting couple asleep side-by-side in their chairs.

"Wake up guys. It's 6:55. You'll need to tell us all what you found."

The duo shot up at once and recoiled from each other when they realized they were practically on top of each other. Yaoyorozu smiled. She shouldn't have been too harsh on them. She herself couldn't sleep much after all the excitement, and she doubted the rest of the class did either.

"Um, we- we'll wait until everyone shows up." Midoriya blinked, trying to remember the research they had done last night.

He and Ochako had spent 5 hours using Google Earth to look for buildings in the evacuated area that could be used as a base. There were a lot of them. Over two-hundred, in fact. After they created a list of possible locations for Class B's base, they researched each location and crossed off the unlikely ones from the list. If a building housed an office or a place that would be used by other people daily, then it would be unlikely that UA could use it as a training area. Together, the two students narrowed down their list to six possible buildings that could serve as the enemy's base.

"Does anyone want chocolate chip pancakes?" asked Sato, who received a few cheers in response. "I'm putting a big plate in the command room. We can eat as we plan."

Very quickly, the whole class gathered around the table, happily munching on pancakes.

"Okay, time to plan," said Yaoyorozu. "Midoriya, Ochako, show us what you've got."

Midoriya connected his cellphone to the room's projector as Ochako shared what they found last night: "We've narrowed it down to six possible buildings." She gestured toward the screen, where Midoriya displayed a map with six markers on it.

"So Class B's in one of these?" Bakugou asked. "Why don't we just all go and bust into each one?"

Yaoyorozu answered: "Because we have to assume that Class B knows just as much as we do. If we all left now, we'd giving Class B the chance to find our base and take the flag. Additionally, as a large group, we'd also be easy to spot."

Bakugou sneered. But the girl made sense, so he couldn't argue. "Are you saying you have a better idea?"

"No," Yaoyorozu admitted. "I'll have to think some more."

Iida raised his hand. "What if instead of using a big group, we sent everybody out individually?"

Midoriya inclined his head thoughtfully. "That _would_ be more discreet."

"But then it would be more easy for them to pick us off one-be-one." It was Ojiro.

"We should form groups of people who know how to use their quirks well together," Todoroki suggested. "Take Bakugou and Kirishima, for example. Even if Kirishima charges head-on, Bakugou won't have to worry about hurting Kirishima because he can resist the explosions with his hardening quirk."

"True, but two people can still be picked off easily by a larger group," Tsuyu added. "How about teams of four? That way, we won't be too conspicuous and each team can be a robust fighting force."

"There are six main locations, right?" Bakugou asked. "How about we send three teams of four to each search two locations, and then we attack with everything we have once we find their base?"

The entire room went silent as everyone stared at the boy.

"What?" he growled.

"That- did you just make a plan?" Kirishima asked, astounded.

"Yeah. So what?"

Midoriya spoke for the class: "Um, you never really seemed to be a planner, y'know? You're more of a hit first, think later type of guy."

"Don't forget, dumbass:" Bakugou retorted indignantly. "I'm smarter than you."

As much as the class did not want to believe it, Bakugou's statement was true. While Midoriya, who ranked 4th in the class, was smart and dedicated, he fell right behind Bakugou, who ranked 3rd.

"Woah, I wasn't doubting your intelligence," Midoriya stammered. "It's just that I'm surprised, that's all."

"Whatever." Bakugou looked down and started picking at his fingernails.

"It's a great plan," Yaoyorozu said, steering their conversation back towards strategy, "and I cannot think of anything better. Does everyone agree?"

The class slowly murmured in agreement. Midoriya pondered for a moment, and then slowly nodded his head. Although they were wary of taking advice from their warlike classmate, Class A could not think of any flaws in his strategy right off the top of their heads.

"So now that we have our overall strategy down," Yaoyorozu said, rising to her feet. "Let's make a list of what we know about our opponents, Class B. I, for one, got to know Kendo during my workplace experience week, and I met Awase at the training camp, where we carried me away from the rampaging Nomu." On the whiteboard, she wrote out two names: ' **Itsuka Kendo** ' and ' **Yosetsu Awase**.' "Kendo is strong at a close range, since she excels in hand-to-hand combat. Her quirk allows her to enlarge her hands to about the size of large car doors, maybe bigger." Under Kendo's name, she wrote ' **close range** ' and ' **hand enlargement**.' "Meanwhile, Awase can use his quirk to fuse any two objects together." She wrote ' **fusion** ' under his name. "Both are physically very strong, but that's a given for heroics students. Anyone else have anything to add?"

Iida's hand shot up. "Kendo is their class president, and she keeps the others in line. Chances are, she's leading them just as you are leading us."

Yaoyorozu added ' **leader** ' under her name. "What else do we know?"

"Mmm, I know!" shouted Kaminari, as he gulped down the remainder of a pancake. "I fought against Ibara Shiozaki in the final round of the tournament."

"Alright," Yaoyorozu said, writing ' **Ibara Shiozaki** ' on the board. "What can you tell us?"

Kaminari thought. "Well, she's nice. And pretty. Definitely dateable material."

Bakugou groaned.

"Tell us something more useful," Yaoyorozu said, irked.

Kaminari nodded. "Well, you all saw her quirk, which allowed her to grow and detach vines from her hair. She seemed potent at a long range." Yaoyorozu wrote ' **vines** ' and ' **ranged** ' on the board. "And I think Present Mic said she needs water and sunlight to do her thing." Yaoyorozu added ' **weakness to darkness** ' to the board.

"She freezes under pressure, as well," Iida added, remembering how he could push her out of bounds uncontested during the sports festival. "Though that might have changed since then."

"Kirishima, you fought against Tetsutetsu, right?"

The spiky-haired redhead nodded. Yaoyorozu wrote ' **Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu** ' on the board.

"He can turn his body into steel, very similar to how I can harden my skin," Kirishima explained. "We fought to a stalemate, but I beat him in the tiebreaker arm-wrestling contest because his quirk gave in. He mumbled something about 'not consuming enough iron'." Yaoyorozu added: ' **steel skin** ', ' **close range** ' and ' **needs to eat iron** '.

"Who else?" she asked.

"Monoma," Bakugou grumbled. "The idiot. He can use anybody's quirk by touching them. But he can't use two at once." Yaoyorozu jotted ' **quirk copying** ' under the name ' **Neito Monoma** '. "Mind you, he blabbed all of this to me right before he lost the cavalry race. He was with that normal-looking guy who could solidify air. They were both weak."

"I think his name is Tsuburaba," Sero added. "Bakugou broke through his shield with a powerful enough strike. Also, we met Bondo, a glue dispenser guy, and Kodai, who could shrink." Yaoyorozu added: ' **Tsuburaba** ' and under it, ' **air solidification - breakable** ' and ' **Bondo** ' above ' **glue dispenser** '.

"She can get bigger, too!" Hagakure shouted from across the room. "Very scary." Yaoyorozu wrote: ' **Kodai** ' and, ' **size change** '.

"Do we know anything else?" Yaoyorozu asked. The students looked around, uneasily. It was starting to sink in that they didn't know enough about their rival class.

"Not for certain," Midoriya said. "Juzo Honenuki did something to let us sink into the ground, but I'm not sure of the details." Yaoyorozu left the board blank. "We can assume they know more about us since we had a stronger representation at the sports festival."

"Are you going to eat that?" Hagakure asked Todoroki, who shook his head no. The last half of pancake on his plate shot into the air, folded, and disappeared.

Jiro spoke up: "By now, Class B has probably started planning like we are now. Let's get out of here as soon as it turns 8:00." She motioned to her watch. 7:33.

"We must form our squads now, then," Iida said. "Todoroki, you mentioned Bakugou and Kirishima would make a good pairing. Are you guys okay with that?"

Bakugou growled. "I'll take Shitty Hair. It's not like I can find anyone better." Kirishima beamed. Compliments from Bakugou were exceedingly rare. "I want Dunce Face, too," he said, referring to Kaminari. "And Racoon Eyes."

"Really?" 'Racoon Eyes' Mina asked. She understood Kaminari and Kirishima: they worked with Bakugou during the Provisional License Exam. But her? Bakugou hadn't said a word to her since they teamed up for the cavalry battle.

"Yeah," Bakugou grunted. "You can quietly scale buildings by melting handholds with your acid. In this urban setting, where stealth is key, it would be stupid _not_ to have you."

Kirishima's grin widened even more. With his decent strategy and generous compliments, Bakugou was full of surprises today. _Did Jiro beat some decency into him when they were practicing for the Culture Festival performance?_ Kirishima wondered, but he quickly discarded the thought. Not even Bakugou's own mother could tame the boy.

Iida cleared his throat. "Alright, then. We have one squad decided. You can be 'Alpha Squad'. Does anyone else want to team up?"

"Yes!" shouted a disembodied voice that could only belong to Hagakure. "No way I can use Stealth Mode in this weather without Todoroki's flame side to keep my temperature up."

"I'm cool with that," Todoroki said. "Hagakure's quirk will be invaluable for this exercise, and it would be a shame not to use it to its full potential."

"I understand," Iida said. "You can be our stealth recon team. Who else do you guys want?"

"If you're doing recon, I might as well join." Jiro nodded to Todoroki. "My quirk gives me better hearing through solid objects, so I can scan buildings before we send Hagakure in."

"Then I'll join in too," said Shoji through one of his mouth extensions. "My extra body parts enhance my observation. Useful for reconnaissance."

"That's four," Iida noted. "You can be 'Bravo,'" he said, taking names from the NATO phonetic alphabet.

"Okay, great!" Yaoyorozu felt like this was going well. "We have two squads so far."

"I want to team up with Tsu," Ochako stated, turning to her friend. "We worked as a team during our internship, so we know each other very well."

Tsuyu nodded. "We've been working on some combo attacks. Together, we make an effective team."

"Iida, why don't we join up with them?" Midoriya asked. "Your speed works well with Ochako's zero-gravity, since you can carry her at full speed without worrying about extra weight. And Ochako can turn me into a flying, punching missile, if needed."

"Astute as always, Midoriya." Iida looked at his three squadmates. "That makes us 'Squad Charlie.'"

"Alright then," Yaoyorozu said. "That makes three 'base search' squads. Now we need to think about defense."

She continued: "In addition to any equipment you all might need, I can create and maintain traps, like electric fences, in our base. I hate to say it, but Mineta's sticky spheres will come in handy for traps."

"No complaints here," the boy said, excited to work closely with his favorite female classmate.

Yaoyorozu shuddered at the creepy vibe radiating from the boy. "Try anything weird and I'll have Ochako float you into orbit."

She looked around the room for anybody else who might be better off away from the action.

"Aoyama, why don't you join us?" she said to the glittery boy. "Your 'sparkle' will catch the attention of anyone we want to bait into a trap." She turned to Koji Koda, the quiet boy who scared easily. "And Koda, you can tell the seabirds to screech when somebody enters the building. A natural alarm."

Koda nodded.

"Oui, mademoiselle!" Aoyama said, oblivious to Yaoyorozu's true motive for selecting him. "I shall not disappoint."

"That's Delta Squad," Iida announced. "You guys will hold down the fort."

"That leaves Ojiro, Sato, Sero, and Tokoyami," Yaoyorozu said. You guys can patrol the area around our base and strike along with the rest of the class when we find Class B's"

"Team Echo," Iida said. "Last, but certainly not least."

Yaoyorozu wrote the teams on the board:

 **{Offence}**

 **-Alpha-**

 **Bakugou**

 **Kirishima**

 **Kaminari**

 **Mina**

 **-Bravo-**

 **Todoroki**

 **Hagakure**

 **Jiro**

 **Shoji**

 **-Charlie-**

 **Ochako**

 **Tsuyu**

 **Midoriya**

 **Iida**

 **{Defence}**

 **-Delta-**

 **Yaoyorozu**

 **Mineta**

 **Aoyama**

 **Koda**

 **-Echo-**

 **Ojiro**

 **Sato**

 **Sero**

 **Tokoyami**

"Okay!" shouted Yaoyorozu. "We have our plan, and we have our teams. Let's suit up!"

* * *

As Class A was forming their strategy, Class B sat in their own Command Room, facing their team's smartboard.

"So, where do we even start?" asked Awase, yawning. He was hit hard by the 6:00 wakeup.

Class B's homeroom teacher, the pro hero Vlad King, had given his class the same speech Aizawa had to Cass A, just four hours later. He had dropped his students off at their base on the peninsula before driving off.

"We know most of Class A from the Sports Festival and the summer training camp," Kendo said. "So now we just need a strategy for finding their base and stealing their flag."

Much like Yaoyorozu, Kendo had taken the role as her team's leader. She wished their teacher had woken them up earlier like Aizawa had woken up Class A so they could have come up with more of a plan. Now, her class was facing a ticking clock without any idea what to do.

"Come on," she groaned. "Does anybody have any ideas?" The class remained mute.

"It's simple, really," a voice said from the back. "We hardly need to do anything at all." It was Momona.

"So we just wait here for Class A to track us down?" Kendo asked. "Forgive me if I'm not one-hundred percent on-board with you plan."

"Not entirely," Monoma said. "We just need to let Class A do all the investigative work, only to fall into a cunning trap of my devising." He explained his plan.

* * *

 **Here's chapter two. Enjoy! For those concerned about a lack of action in the first two chapters, don't fret! The best is yet to come.**

 **As always, thanks for reading, and thanks for any positive/constructive feedback you might have! I'm always looking for ways to improve my writing, so leave a review if you have anything to say!**


	3. Alien Queen's Battle

**I'd like to rectify another mistake someone pointed out in Chapter 2. I said that the boys' quarters only housed 13 beds, when there really should have been 14. There was no ulterior motive to giving the boys not enough beds; it was a typo on my part.**

 **Enjoy Chapter 3!**

* * *

"This building's empty," Kirishima said, emerging from the lobby's staircase. "Mina, can you update the rest of the group?"

Mina nodded, and pulled out her cell phone and started typing out a message:

 _*Our first building's empty*_

She hit send, knowing her classmates from all around the city had received her message. Right before everyone left, Yaoyorozu made a class 'group chat' where everyone could communicate. She asked each team to check in with their status and location every thirty minutes.

"If you don't reply," she told the class, "we'll assume you've been taken by the enemies and we'll send another squad to check out your last known location. If any of you run into trouble, or if you find their base, send your location to the group with the details, if you can."

When Todoroki asked if Yaoyorozu could create tracking devices for them, she shook her head.

"Awase knows about my ability to create tracking devices, so Class B can use them against us by taking a tracker and leading us into a trap."

Mina's phone buzzed, breaking the girl out of her flashback. There was a new message from Iida:

 _*Our fist building is empty too. Moving on to the next one.*_

Quickly, a message from Jiro popped up too:

 _*Same here. Bravo Squad out.*_

Mina reported the contents of the messages to the rest of her team.

Bakugou groaned. "Waste of time, so far."

"Hey, let's look on the bright side," Kirishima said, trying to keep morale up. "We've narrowed it down to three places. We'll find Class B's base soon."

"We better," Bakugou groaned. "I'm bored out of my mind and I'm sick of walking."

Mina agreed with the boy on that. So far their final exam had been too uneventful. She was sick of all the of paranoia, the walking, and the abandoned building-searching. But she wasn't looking forward to the inevitable fight against Class B.

 _I'm rusty, compared to the others_ , she thought.

Sure, she had trained just like the rest of her class, but she hadn't seen real combat since the Sports Festival. During her mid year practical exam, all she did was run away. During the attack on the training camp, she was safe and sound with the other flunkies in the lodge. And during the Provisional License Exam, she was content to follow her teammates around and leech off their successes.

At this point, Mina Ashido was unsure she compete like her other classmates.

"The last point of interest is only a few blocks away," Kirishima said. "If it turns out to be empty, we can join up with Midoriya's team or head back to base."

Kaminari's arms sparked with electricity as he grinned. "I can fight at a moment's notice."

"Mina." Bakugou faced his squadmate. "Climb up the side of this building and see if you can see anything."

Mina nodded. The building in question was mostly concrete, and about sixteen stories tall. Not a skyscraper, by any means, but it stood tall enough above the other buildings to serve as a good vantage point.

"When you get to the roof, call me, and tell me what you see," said Kirishima. "Don't do anything rash."

"I gotcha!" She cheerfully waved at her squadmates, trying to conceal her crushing nervousness.

As she walked over to the building's base, she concentrated, coating her hands in a layer of the strongest acid she could make. She grabbed at the wall with her right hand, melting the stiff concrete on contact. In seconds, a small portion of the once-solid wall melted to form a grip. With her right hand, she pulled the rest of her body up off the ground before reaching up and repeating the same process with her left hand. Such a feat would have been impossible if Mina didn't have the pliable body of a professional dancer.

She repeated the process, pulling herself up little by little until she reached the roof. The world looked strange from so high up. In the distance, she thought she could see their own base. Her squadmates looked like tiny little ants. It was very windy up there.

She took out her phone and called Kirishima.

" _ **Hi, Mina,**_ " he said. " _ **How do I look?**_ "

"Puny," she answered, scanning the area. "I don't _think_ I see anything. Wait. No. There's definitely something. I can faintly see a boy, standing around a corner, about a block north of you."

" _ **Is he alone?**_ "

"Yeah, he looks alone, but I cannot see who it is. He _has_ to be in Class B, though."

" _ **Hey, Bakugou, quiet. Somebody from Class B is standing close by.**_ "

Mina heard Bakugou say something in the background.

" _ **You wanna jump him?**_ " Kirishima asked. " _ **Okay. Mina, hang tight.**_ "

The call ended. Mina was nervous for her teammates, but she was glad she wasn't down there to get in their way.

* * *

Back at ground level, Kaminari chased after Kirishima and Bakugou as they sprinted down the block and rounded the corner.

The two stopped suddenly and Kaminari caught up with the others. He saw a boy standing in the middle of the road. He had blond hair that went down to eye level, and he was wearing a ridiculous black suit with along with a cape.

Neito Monoma.

It was definitely him. But something looked off. Why was the boy standing so still? And in the middle of the road?

"Bastard," Bakugou snarled. "Die!"

"Wait!" Kaminari shouted after him. "Something's not right!" But it was too late. The boys were already sprinting towards Monoma's still form.

Kirishima lowered his shoulder and charged, while Bakugou released an explosive blast at Monomoa's head. But the boy remained still, and Kirishima never made contact. The redheaded boy phased right through the illusion and landed on the ground behind it face first.

* * *

Hearing the explosion, Ibara Shiozaki turned to her group of teammates, who were hiding in an adjacent alley.

"Alright, ladies, somebody fell for one of Reiko's phantoms. Let's move out."

* * *

Ochako's squad had just finished searching the second building when they heard the explosion.

"Dammit, Bakugou," Midoriya said through gritted teeth. "Now everyone knows where you are. Stay safe."

* * *

Kaminari stayed rooted to the spot as he watched Shiozaki's vines wrap around Bakugou's struggling body. Screaming in rage, Bakugou released a flurry of explosions, but they did no good: his arms were pinned to his sides by the ever-growing mass of vines wrapped around his body.

Right after Bakugou's failed attack, five Class B girls had emerged from the alley and quickly subdued the two Class A boys. There was Shiozaki, the vine girl who Kaminari once fought (unsuccessfully) in the final event of the UA Sports Festival. He recognised Yui Kodai, the girl with the size-altering quirk, but he didn't know the others as well. In addition to the two he could name, there was a mushroom-looking girl with big hair, a girl with zombie arms, and a cute girl with dark hair.

"DIE!" Bakugou screamed, squirming in the vines' grip. "I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU ALL!"

"What a foul mouth." Shiozaki turned her nose up before she commanded her vines to form a gag for Bakugou. "Tokage, bind the redhead with capture tape. Komari, report our success to base." The mushroom girl took out her phone. Apparently, they had a similar communication method to Class A's.

The dark-haired girl moved over to Kirishima, who was on his knees, recovering from the fall. As the girl reached down, he grabbed for her arm and pulled, aiming to force her to the ground, but he pulled her whole arm off instead.

"What?" Kirishima asked looking at the severed arm. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-"

"No worries," assured Setsuna Tokage. "My quirk lets it grow back really fast!" She kicked the boy back to the ground and started to bind his arms.

Kaminari remained frozen. He had no idea what to do.

 _It's the midyear all over again_ , he thought. _I thought I got better at quick thinking! What to do? What to do? Mina will surely be down soon to help, so I need to keep them occupied, somehow!_

"Denki!" Kirishima shouted. "You can take them all out right now! Don't worry about us!"

 _Right_. It was time to let out everything he had. As Kaminari sprinted towards the commotion, Kirishima braced himself.

 _Indiscriminate Discharge! 1,300,000 Volts_ , Kaminari thought, remaining silent so as to not reveal his plans to his opponents.

Shiozaki realized what was happening at the last minute. Right as Kaminari discharged a full blast of electricity, she quickly conjured a vine shield to protect Reiko and herself. Those who were caught unprotected— Kirishima, Bakugou, Tokage, Kodai, and Komari— received the full brunt of the blast and were immediately knocked out.

Shiozaki looked at her fallen comrades.

 _Dammit_ , she thought. _Now we have five bodies to carry instead of two_.

* * *

Mina watched the whole scene unfold from atop the building. She watched as Kirishima seemingly fell through the mysterious boy's body, and how the illusory boy had quickly disappeared. She then watched as Bakugou and Kirishima were ambushed and overpowered by the five others. And then she watched as Kaminari let out his 'indiscriminate shock' and knocked everyone out, save the vine girl and one other.

 _This is all my fault_ , she thought, horrified at the unexpected turn of events. _I shouldn't have reported the illusion to them, and now my squad's going to be captured and we're going to lose._

She realized what she was thinking. Her friends were struggling. Self pity wasn't going to help anyone.

 _No, it's_ _ **not**_ _my fault. There was nothing I could have done. Now, what_ _ **can**_ _I do? I obviously cannot let them take my teammates, so I need to keep them away until help arrives._

Mina coated her hands in the strongest acid she ever created before. The liquid burned her hands, but she didn't care. She had a plan.

 _Here goes nothing_. She plunged her hands into the side of the building and threw her legs over the side.

The concrete under her hands quickly melted, but by gripping the wall and holding on tight as the concrete gave away, she was able to control her slide down the side of the building.

Right as her feet hit the ground, she took of running towards the street where all the action happened. When she arrived, she noticed Shiozaki and Reiko crouching over the unconscious bodies.

 _Good. They don't see me yet_.

Without moment's hesitation, Mina sprinted towards Shiozaki, whom she deemed to be the bigger threat of the two. As she neared, she jumped and reached for the girl's vine-like hair.

 _The source of her power,_ Mina thought.

When the vines touched Mina's acidified hands, they immediately dissolved.

Shiozaki turned, her hair a mass of burnt, smoking vines.

"Reiko. Looks like we missed one." Shiozaki lunged with her fist, but Mina was quicker. The pink-skinned girl dove to the ground and kicked out Shiozaki's legs, bringing her adversary to her knees.

Shiozaki athletically rolled away.

"Reiko," she commanded. "The vines will grow back, given sunlight. Can you buy me some time?"

"Sure." In the blink of an eye, ten identical copies of Shiozaki appeared. Mina struck at one of them with an acidified palm, but her hand only phased through the illusion.

"Like my quirk?" Reiko taunted, moving out of melee range. "It's called 'Poltergeist.' It lets me project illusions and mirages as long as I can picture the composition of the illusion and its target. I can even make the illusion speak."

"You'll never find the real me!" a Shiozaki clone shouted.

"Which one of me is the right one?" another asked.

Reiko continued. "Unless I'm looking right at it, it's difficult to pass an illusion off as human. But your classmates fell for mine too easily. I was almost disappointed."

Mina pressed her palms together and shot a stream of acid at Reiko, but it just phased through the girl's body.

"Oh, right. I forgot to say. I can project myself, as well." Mina noticed three more Reiko clones. "Good luck finding me."

She didn't know where to attack, but Mina knew she needed to act fast. As she backed away from the advancing clones, she racked her brain for a plan.

She stepped on Bakugou's unconscious body, knocking free one of the improvised grenades from his belt.

 _Bingo._ She picked up a grenade.

"You need to be looking at your illusion to make it look convincing, huh?" She pulled the pin from Bakugou's grenade. "You better look away if you don't want shrapnel in you eyes."

Mina knew Bakugou's grenade didn't use shrapnel. After all, that would be potentially deadly. But Reiko had no reason to know any better. As the grenade exploded, Mina watched the clones' movement very carefully. They all froze, momentarily, when Reiko shut her eyes. All but one.

"Found you," Mina said to the real Shiozaki.

Her vines still regegenerating, Shiozaki backpedaled away from Mina, but the Alien Queen shot a burst of acid at the girl's feet, causing her to slip and fall.

"I got you now." Mina reached down and lifted Shiozaki to her feet, only to twist the girl around and put her in a headlock. Shiozaki's quirk might have been strong, but up close, her frail body was no match for Mina's.

Mina faced the advancing Reikos. "If I see any of your clones move another step, I'll melt her face off." The clones all stopped, each wearing an expression of uncertainty.

Mina applied more pressure to Shiozaki's neck. The girl was struggling, but she was losing her fight.

 _I'll knock her out soon,_ she thought. _Good._

When the body in her arms went limp, Mina dropped it and turned to the Reiko clones.

"Now, it's just a process of elimination."

She lunged for one of the Reikos, only to have her hands phase through it.

"Not you." She moved to the next one.

"Not you, either."

Mina sensed something behind her. She turned. A Reiko was making a lunge for her back. Mina sent an agile roundhouse kick, which connected, knocking the girl over. With better control of her quirk, Reiko could have sent all of her clones at once, but in the heat of battle, she wasn't thinking straight. Like an idiot, she had jumped for Mina and blew her cover.

Mina grinned at Reiko's dismayed face.

"Third time's the charm," she said, as she reached down to embrace the panicking girl. "Don't worry. I give you an 'F' for 'effort'."

Then Mina spun the girl around and put her in another headlock.

* * *

 **Chapter 3 is done! This chapter was very different from the others in that it was action-heavy and focused around one particular character (Mina Ashido).**

 **Mina was pretty badass there, wasn't she? She definitely won't be the last character to have her moment!**

 **Somebody pointed out in a review that Iida maybe shouldn't have had such a passive role in the planning process. I see him as less of a 'team leader' and more as 'someone who makes sure everyone stays in line and follows the rules' so to me, it makes sense that Yaoyorozu takes charge of logistics just like Kendo in Class B.**

 **As always, thanks for reading, and thanks for any positive/constructive feedback you might have! I'm always looking for ways to improve my writing, so leave a review if you have anything to say!**


	4. Shipyard Scuffle

"Dammit!" Yaoyorozu shouted through gritted teeth, slamming her fists down on the conference table.

It had been ten minutes since she heard the explosion, and for ten minutes, she had stared at her phone, waiting for some sort of signal from Alpha Squad.

"Frustrated?" Mineta asked. "I feel you."

Yaoyorozu nodded, pleasantly surprised by her squadmate's sympathetic words.

"If Bakugou's squad has been captured, our whole plan might unravel," she explained. "I'm tense because I don't know if we can stand up to Class B if they end up finding our base."

Mineta waked closer to the girl. "You just need to calm down. Let your skin breathe. It might help if you remove a laye-" He stopped when Yaoyorozu glared daggers at him.

"Shut up." She growled. "Go make some more traps. I don't care if your skull bleeds. Do it."

Terrified, Mineta walked off, mumbling something about women and their dangerous mood swings.

Just as the door to the command room closed behind him, Yaoyorozu's phone buzzed. It was Mina. She immediately picked it up.

"Mina! What happened? What's going on?"

" _ **A lot happened.**_ " From her end of the call, Yaoyorozu couldn't tell if Mina was excited, panicked, or both.

"Explain what happened, step by step."

" _ **Well, first I was on a roof, and I saw Monoma, but he wasn't real and it was a trap so Bakugou and Kirishima were ambushed by five Class B girls, but Kaminari knocked three of them out, and I came down and burned Shiozaki's hair, threw a grenade, and knocked the rest of them out.**_ "

"Okay." Yaoyorozu tried to make sense of the girl's report. "So what's going on now?"

" **Well, I couldn't find a way to carry any of our boys because they were too heavy, so I picked up Shiozaki and grabbed Kaminari's arm and started moving towards base.** "

"Good. Keep on heading towards base. I'll send a group to retrieve our teammates, and another to investigate your last building."

" **Okey-dokey. I'll hang up now**."

"Wait, one more thing."

" **Yeah?** "

"Good job capturing Shiozaki. Her vine quirk could have posed a huge threat later down the line."

" **It was nothing, really,** " Mina lied.

Yaoyorozu smiled and hung up.

* * *

From far behind her, Hiryu Rin watched, unseen, as Mina put her phone away.

 _She's definitely returning to her base_ , he thought. _Excellent. Just as Monomoa envisioned._

Once he verified the location of Class A's base, all he had to do was make a call, and an elite fighting force of Class B students would be on their doorstep, ready to wreak havoc and steal the flag.

 _This girl should really be more aware of her surroundings. Not that she'd be able to detect me even if she looked._

He stifled a diabolical laugh.

 _Class A: your cockiness will be your downfall._

* * *

"Empty," Ochako said, shutting the lobby door behind her. "Class B's base is either near Bakugou or near Todoroki."

Squad Charlie had just finished searching the second suspected location of Class B's base, with no luck.

"I think Bakugou might have already found it." Tsuyu motioned towards the east side of the peninsula, where they had all heard the explosion twenty minutes prior.

"I hope he's okay," Midoriya sighed. "If his squad gets captured, or if they lead Class B to our base, we'll be at a significant disadvantage."

"We cannot do anything about it now," Iida said, trying to reassure his friend. "We can only do our own job as well as we can, and hope the others do the same."

He turned to Ochako. "Speaking of our job, have you reported our findings yet?"

"I'm on it." As soon as she hit send, her phone started buzzing. It was Yaoyorozu.

"Hello?"

" _ **Ochako. I need your squad to do something.**_ "

"What do you need? Also, what happened to Alpha Squad?"

Yaoyorozu filled her in.

" _ **We need you to recover Bakugou and Kirishima near their second target, if you can."**_

"We'll do that." At the moment, Ochako's squad was on the wrong side of the city's bay. Unless they could cross the bay, they would have to go the long way around.

" _ **Ochako. Be careful. Chances are, Class B's base is near there.**_ "

"We'll stay hidden, if we can. Thanks for the advice!" She hung up and turned to her curious squadmates.

"We need to get to the peninsula ASAP." She filled them in on the details.

"It would take hours to go around…" Tsuyu said. "I can easily swim across the bay, but you guys cannot, obviously."

Midoriya pondered for a moment. "Ochako, can you put yourself, me, and Iida in zero gravity all at once?'

Ochako shook her head. "Any more than five seconds and I'll probably vomit."

"That's not long enough." Midoriya looked doubtful. "Let me reconsider." He paused for a moment. " _That could work_ ," he mumbled.

"Midoriya?" Iida asked expectantly. "You have a plan?"

Midoriya nodded. "Hear me out."

* * *

Midoriya and Ochako lay together on a mattress.

It isn't what it sounds like— their laying together was a crucial part of their plan.

Five minutes previously, Tsuyu had found it while walking through a department store and, after deeming it to be passingly floatable, she borrowed it.

Weighed down by the two bodies, the mattress barely floated in the water of the bay. It would sink soon.

"Let's hurry up, Iida," Midoriya commanded his friend. "I don't know how long this thing will float for."

"I'm ready," the boy said.

"I wonder what the store owners will think when they find their mattress soaked on the other side of the bay," Ochako mused.

On the opposite bank, surrounded by tall, stacked, metal containers, Tsuyu stood, waving. She had swiftly swum across the bay, and now the girl was watching as her teammates readied their makeshift boat.

Iida grabbed onto the mattress. Ochako touched his arm.

"Okay. I'm floating you now so you won't sink."

He awkwardly pulled his feet into the water, revved his leg engines, and took off.

Their raft jolted, but it moved quickly forward. With the help of Ochako's quirk, Iida was practically running on water, propelling the raft like a motor with swift his leg movements.

As the raft splashed, Ochako got a face full of harbor water.

"Eww, gross! We're going so fast!" She grabbed onto Midoriya.

"Stay back," the boy said, the implications of her gesture soaring far over his head. "We want to keep our mass spread out so we don't sink." Midoriya didn't know how long the mattress would hold up. After fifteen seconds, they were halfway across the bay, but the mattress was almost submerged.

"R-right." Ochako looked disappointed. "Hey, we're almost there!"

She was right. By then, they had drawn near to the opposite shore. Too near.

"Iida, STOP!" shouted Midoriya over the furious splashing.

The boy stopped moving his legs, and they drifted slowly and safely to shore.

"That went well," Iida said. He was dripping from the waist down. "Now let's go find our friends."

* * *

Perched atop a stack of containers, Class B's Kosei Tsuburaba watched as the makeshift raft made its way across the bay. He opened his phone and texted Monoma.

* * *

Finally on dry land, Midoriya visualized the city in his head.

"We're roughly a kilometer away from Class B's supposed base."

Iida nodded. "Let's remain vigilant."

"Can you scout ahead?"

"Sure." Iida revved his leg engines and took off, sprinting through the maze of containers.

He didn't get very far before he crashed at full speed into an invisible barrier and immediately blacked out.

Hearing the collision, Tsuyu turned to her teammates. "What was that?"

Midoriya shouted: "Iida! Are you okay?"

"Sounds like he tripped, or something," Ochako said. But she had sinking feeling that something much worse had happened.

"I'll go check it out," Midoriya assured, activating his Full Cowling.

"Wait!" Ochako yelled after him. But it was too late. Midoriya had already leaped over a container stack on his way to check on his friend.

"Idiot," Tsuyu spat. "Why is he always jumping right into things?"

"He's walking into a trap." Ochako was worried for her friends.

"Let's try to catch up."

Tsuyu leaped onto the side a crate and vaulted off, propelling herself toward the location of the crash. Ochako followed, momentarily degravitising herself so she could leap onto a container stack.

 _Please don't be an ambush_ , Ochako thought.

* * *

Midoriya landed at the location of the collision. He maybe shouldn't have abandoned the girls so hastily, but he was anxious to see if Iida was alright.

He noticed Iida's collapsed body next to what appeared to be a large crack embedded in the air. There was only one person he knew with a quirk that could do something like that.

 _Air solidification— Tsuburaba_.

It was an ambush.

He felt the ground began to sink underneath him. He activated Full Cowling again and tried to jump, but it was no use. The soles of his feet could not find purchase in the quicksand that had appeared, and he continued to sink.

A boy with a skeleton-like face appeared from behind one of the containers.

"Tetsutetsu, I got one," announced Juzo Homenuki.

 _Shoot_ , he thought, defeated. _I walked right into this one_. Two more boys emerged from behind the containers. Midoriya recognized one of them as Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu, also known as 'Iron Fist', but he did not recognize the other boy, who had short, dark hair.

Tsuburaba jumped down from a container stack, twirling a spool of capture tape around his index finger.

"Your class president practically turned himself in when he ran into my solid-air trap. Imagine my surprise when _another_ Class A student fell so easily into our trap." He turned to Tetsutetsu. "What is it about Class A students and their obsession with being captured?"

Tetsutetsu growled. "Quit gloating and tie them up. We don't know if they have any more teammates coming after them."

Tsuburaba grinned as he started tying Iida's hands. "If there are any more of them, they'll somehow find a way to screw-"

His words were cut off when an open container suddenly fell from the sky, trapping him within.

The container had come from the top of a tall stack, where Ochako and Tsuyu were observing the commotion below.

"Nice throw, Tsu."

"It helped that it was weightless."

"Even so, that takes accuracy. If heroics doesn't work out, you'd be a good basketball player."

"Thanks, Ochako. Now pass me another container."

Ochako obliged, degravitizing another heavy metal box and passing it to Tsuyu. Tsuyu wrapped it with her tongue, positioned it, and then flung her second projectile down at the boys below. Ochako pressed her hands together, restoring it to its normal weight.

As the container flew towards Tetsutetsu, he activated his power and caught the container in his bare, metal hands, and the force of the throw pushed him back ten meters. He grimaced at the strain on his body.

"Honenuki, get them!" He pointed toward the girls on the container stack. "They're up there! Kaibara, restrain Midoriya and get those two back to base."

Honenuki directed his quicksand powers to the base girls' container stack. The stack started to sink.

"Tsu," Ochako said. "We'll lose footing soon. Time to fight."

"You know what to do, right?"

"Yep!"

Ochako tapped Tsuyu's shoulder and watched as the girl pushed off from their platform and floated towards Honenuki. Just as the girl neared her target, Ochako pressed her fingertips together and restored her friend's weight. Tsuyu crashed into Honenuki, knocking him over.

"At this range, you can't use your quicksand powers on me without endangering yourself, can you?"

"Clever," replied the boy. "But I don't need to aim for you." He turned to face Ochako, hoping to trap her like he trapped Midoriya, but Tsuyu punched him in the face, breaking his concentration.

"Not if I can help it!"

Right after releasing her friend, Ochako faced Tetsutetsu and pushed off from the sinking platform, degravitizing herself.

"Have your box back!" Supported by his tough iron body, the boy lifted the container and threw it at Ochako.

" _Oof!_ " The metal crate hit her hard, and she momentarily lost control of her powers. Now affected by gravity, she plummeted to the ground along with the container. Winded and battered, Ochako stumbled to her feet. She degravitized the container once again and threw it at the boy.

"No, you can keep it. I insist!"

She degravitised herself and lunged towards him.

Quick to follow up on their violent game of catch, Tetsutetsu caught the container and threw it back at the girl, but this time, Ochako was prepared. She deactivated her powers and passed safely under the crate before reactivating them to land safely on the ground near her opponent.

"Facing me at close range is a mistake," Tetsutetsu boasted, pounding one metal fist into another.

"Is it though?" Ochako replied, mimicking the motion with her own fists.

* * *

While Ochako and Tetsutetsu were engaged in their back-and-forth, Tsuyu was very much winning against her opponent. Whenever Honenuki tried to retreat and regain the distance he needed to safely use his quirk, Tsuyu would hop closer and land a punch.

In a desperate attempt to gain the upper hand, Honenuki activated his quirk under Tsuyu's feet, but she hopped forward and landed behind the boy.

"Big mistake," she taunted. Honenuki spun around, only to be kicked backinto his own quicksand. Tsuyu walked closer and pushed her opponent further into the ground.

"Better deactivate your quirk soon, if you don't want to suffocate."

"B-but, restoring the ground now would leave me trapped!"

"I know," she responded. "Better to be trapped while your head's above ground, right?" By then, Tsuyu had pushed the majority of Honenuki's body into the quicksand.

After a moment's deliberation, the boy obliged, and he restored the ground to its natural concrete, leaving his body embedded shoulders-down. It was safe to say he'd be out of commission for a while.

* * *

Tsuyu looked over to Ochako's side of the fight, where the girl was keeping her larger opponent engaged in a game of cat-and-mouse. Tetsutetsu knew that his opponent could effectively trap him with one touch, so he kept her at arms' length and tried to knock her out with quick, precise punches. Although hand-to-hand combat was very different than his usual 'drop shoulder and charge' strategy, Tetsutetsu could fight skillfully in a pinch.

 _But she's dodging every single one of my attacks_ , he thought. _And what's more: she's giving herself time to counterattack!_

Ochako was no slouch when it came to hand-to-hand combat. She had trained with a martial arts master, Gunhead, for a week, and then practiced against Tsuyu during their internship. For every punch that Tetsutetsu sent, Ochako swiftly dodged and followed through with a counterattack, trying to touch her opponent and activate her quirk.

Tetsutetsu sent a swift punch directly at her face, but Ochako ducked and dove in with a jab. Luckily for him, she did not have the long reach that he did, so Tetsutetsu was able to step away before her fingers could make contact.

 _Still_ , he thought. _If I don't do something soon, my metal coating will wear off_.

He prepared himself for a finishing move. In a sudden burst of speed and power, Tetsutetsu put all of his body's force into a punch aiming at Ochako's midriff.

 _Try dodging this,_ he thought. But his fist met only air. _What?_

Ochako had twisted her body to narrowly avoid the punch.

 _Now is the time_ , she thought. He had overextended himself and was momentarily vulnerable. She grabbed his outstretched arm and activated her quirk.

Tetsutetsu became suspended an inch above the ground, and he was powerless to do anything more. He swung wildly, but Ochako stepped back. He reverted to his normal form.

"Dammit," he praised the girl. "You got me."

"Some advice:" she said to him, "Never give up your long reach. You shoulda kept me at arms' length until a better opportunity presented itself." He hung his head in defeat.

"And that, Tetsutetsu, is your lesson for today."

She grabbed the boy and flung him like a softball into the air. Before he got too high, Ochako deactivated her quirk, and he plummeted into the middle of the bay with a furious splash.

"Hey, Tetsutetsu, Honenuki, Kaibara, SOMEONE!" came a voice from inside Ochako's first crate. "Get me out of here!"

She turned to Tsuyu, who had just finished with Honenuki. "It will take a while for these three to free themselves. Now for Midoriya and Iida…"

"They're back at our base," he said. "They're well guarded."

She had completely forgot about Kaibara, who had been mysteriously absent for the duration of the battle.

Tsuyu connected the dots. "That means your base is nearby…"

"Hmph, no matter." The boy didn't look bothered by the fact that he had just revealed his base's location. "With five of your class' best fighters out of the picture, the match will be over soon anyway."

"Five?"

"Oh, yeah." He sneered. "The ice-and-fire guy found himself overwhelmed so he turned himself in. Kinda pathetic, dontcha think?"

Ochako's heart fell. With Iida, Kirishima, Bakugou, Midoriya, and now, Todoroki captured, Class A had lost the best of its fighting force.

"Anyway, I can't fight you both now, so I'll run. But I think you might want to head back to your base on the west side of town, soon."

"Wait," Tsuyu said. "What do you mean?" Kaibara just smiled and walked away.

Ochako's blood went cold. _They know where our base is_.

Her phone buzzed. It was Yaoyorozu. She picked it up.

"Hey, Momo, bad news-"

" _ **Ochako, whatever's going on with you, we have it worse.**_ " Her voice sounded stressed. " _ **We need you back here ASAP.**_ "

"Why? What's going on?"

" _ **Our base is under attack. Class B is here!**_ "

* * *

 **Chapter 4 is done! I hope you liked the action from Ochako and Tsuyu, something we sorely missed during the Overhaul Arc in the manga.**

 **Next up: Class A will be defending their base from Class B's surprise attack.**

 **As always, thanks for reading, and thanks for any positive/constructive feedback you might have! I'm always looking for ways to improve my writing, so leave a review if you have anything to say!**


	5. Holding Down the Fort

**Chapter 5**

* * *

Itsuka Kendo looked up at the not-so-imposing building that was Class A's base.

 _It seems so... normal. I guess that's the point._ Kendo could have spent weeks searching for it without any luck.

 _I guess it was a good idea to have Class A lead us to it._ _Though I have no idea how they came so close to ours._ She would need to talk to Yaoyorozu after this was all over, Class B won.

With the surrounding buildings blocking out the setting sun, it was getting dark.

 _Darkness will be useful_ , she thought. _Better to conceal our numbers_. A classmate walked up.

"We're ready and in formation," stated Awase. Stiffening, he made a mock salute. "Awaiting your orders, General."

Her headbanded classmate was probably joking, but Kendo sensed a grain of seriousness in his voice.

"You wouldn't be wrong in calling me that," she teased. "It seems like I've been doing most of the coordinating and planning for our ragtag little group."

Awase grinned. "If you're a General, than Monoma's our Commander-in-Chief!"

Kendo shuddered to imagine her thin-skinned classmate in a position of military power.

"You all know the plan!" she shouted. "All troops, move out!"

* * *

Yaoyorozu looked down from a fourth-floor window as their opponents advanced towards the building.

She lifted a walkie-talkie of her own creation.

"Mineta, they're coming in. I count about eight, but the darkness could be hiding others. You can oversee the traps while I coordinate with Echo."

" _ **Gotcha, Momo,**_ " he responded. " _ **What do I get if I catch every single one of these guys?**_ "

"A good grade," she responded, hanging up.

She turned to Mina, next to her, as she created a piece of cloth.

"Use this to gag Shiozaki. We don't want her to yell to her teammates from jail."

Mina nodded, adopting a sarcastic tone. "Can't wait to see her again."

Shiozaki had been extremely polite to her captors, to the point where it unnerved Mina.

Mina continued: "Can't she yell at us or beg to be freed like a normal capive?"

Yaoyorozu smiled as the girl walked into their jail, and then looked out the window at her orange-haired rival.

"What tricks do you have your your sleeve, Kendo?"

* * *

Awase walked into the lobby, flanked by the rest of Class B's vanguard. Besides him, there were six others.

He quickly noticed Aoyama, who was standing in the staircase.

" _Oi_ , come and get me! _If you can_!" Giggling, Aoyama dashed up the stairs, leaving a trail of glitter.

 _An obvious trap_ , Awase thought. But Shishida, his beastly companion, roared and charged after him.

"I'LL GET YOU, LITTLE MAN!"

"Wait, Shishida!" Awase yelled after him. "It's a trap!" But the boy rushed after him, anyway. It was stupid, but expected. Shishida had monstrous physical abilities at the cost of low intelligence and cooperation.

But that's why Kendo put him the vanguard.

Shishida ran up the stairs after the sparkling boy, only to be met by Kaminari on the second floor landing. He aimed with his fingers and fired two of his charged pointers at the boy.

"Prepare to be shocked!"

But the boy merely shrugged off the thousands of volts of electricity.

"HUH. FEELS FUNNY!" He continued his charge.

Suddenly terrified, Kaminari turned around and Aoyama.

"My pointers failed. Koda, you're up."

Standing in the kitchen, Koda silently nodded and readied his voice.

"Creatures of the air, roam free!"

Shishida momentarily stopped and perked his head. He could hear some sort of loud rustling coming from the Class A girls' quarters.

"HUH?"

Suddenly, the bedroom door burst open and Shishida was met by a army of seagulls and winged bugs. The pure force of the barrage knocked the boy onto his back and pinned him down.

Koda grinned at the spectacle before following Kaminari and Aoyama to the third floor. He had spent the whole day recruiting the creatures to his cause, and it was fun to see the fruition of his hard work, even if it only served to cause a momentary distraction.

"Mineta, now!"

With the others on the third floor, Mineta grinned and pressed a button on his newly-created wristwatch. The wrist-mounted device sent a signal to the explosives that Yaoyorozu had planted in the second floor ceiling, and the roof above Shishida's head burst open, making way for a torrent of sticky, purple balls. Some of Mineta's spheres landed on the birds in the flock, some of them missed, and one of them landed on the chest of Shishida, who foolishly tried to pry the ball off with his hands.

When it wouldn't unstick from his uniform, Shishida tried to pull his hands from the ball, but his hands were stuck. Further enraged, he tried to pry it off with his teeth, but his whole mouth got stuck too. He tried to let out a roar, but his mouth was covered by the ball, so he instead hummed, loud enough for the whole building to hear.

Upon hearing the deranged screeching on the first floor, Awase turned to his teammates. "What the _HELL_ was that? Did Shishida already get caught?"

Before any of his classmates could answer him, they were engulfed by the tidal wave of wings that had just consumed Shishida.

"What the-"

Since Koda hadn't really made a big splash in the sports festival, nobody in Class B could have envisioned anything _close_ to the tidal wave of birds. As Awase crouched and waited for the swarm to pass, he recognized Mineta's spheres attached to the birds.

"Don't let the spheres touch you!" he shouted to his teammates, swatting away one of the birds.

After a minute, the frenzied cloud dissipated out the front door. Most of Awase's teammates had been spared by the attack, but he noticed that Manga Fukidashi and a newly-awakened Setsuna Tokage had each collided with one of the birds. The sphere on Fukidashi had ensnared both of his arms, while Tokage's sphere had only stuck on to one.

The floating speech bubble in the place of Fukidashi's head displayed some profane, _profane_ words, while Tokage spoke hers out loud.

Awase sighed. "Fukidashi, you'll have to sit this one out. We cannot have an armless guy running around."

The curse words on Fukidashi's face disappeared and the boy nodded, glum.

"What about me?" Tokage asked.

"Can't you use your quirk?"

"Oh, right." Tokage's arm disconnected along with the sphere. Awase remained calm, used to his classmate's sudden self-dismemberment.

He faced his team. "I think Shishida got himself stuck on the second floor. Let's go up, carefully. And whatever you do, do _not_ touch the purple spheres."

* * *

Up on the fourth floor, Yaoyorozu was being briefed by her teammates.

 _I see_. So the Class B boy had activated all their traps, and the other attackers were following close behind.

 _Time to play our last card_.

"Everyone, meet Class B on the second floor. You cannot let them come up."

Then, she pulled out her walkie-talkie.

* * *

Awase moved carefully as he led his remaining teammates up the stairs. As they stepped up onto the second floor landing he was met with a peculiar sight:

Amid all the bird poop and birds struggling under the weight of Mineta's spheres was Shishida, who was wrapped, in the fetal position, around one of the purple balls. The boy's massive muscles strained as he tried to break free, but he had no luck.

"Shishida, don't hurt yourself." Awase tried not to laugh at the ridiculous sight before him. "Try to stay calm."

Shishida was placed on Awase's team so he could rush ahead and trip all the traps in the base. _He fulfilled his role spectacularly_ , Awase thought. Now his team didn't have to worry about any more traps. Probably.

As the students stepped around the purple spheres, all the lights in the building suddenly dimmed.

The door to the second floor, the one which they had just walked through a minute before, creaked open, revealing Class A's Squad Echo.

Tokoyami, Sato, and Ojiro rushed forward.

"Guys, meet them!" Awase shouted. "You got this!"

He didn't want his team to be sandwiched between the newcomers and the rest of Class A, fused the third floor staircase's door to its frame.

Komori rushed forward to face Fumikage. Dark Shadow lunged at her, strengthened by the increased dimmed light, but Komori merely swatted it away, sending it crashing into the wall.

Awase grinned. While Dark Shadow's power increased in dark areas, so did Komori's. Her quirk, 'Mushroom' increased her physical strength during the nighttime.

Komori ran closer to Tokoyami and sent a punch towards his face, but Dark Shadow pushed the boy backwards before she could connect.

" _A worthy opponent,_ " Tokoyami whispered. Komori moved in for another strike.

Tokage and Pony Tsunotori moved towards a strengthened Sato, while Nirengeki Shoda faced Ojiro with glowing palms.

Galloping on all fours, Tsunotori headbutted Sato's knee with one horn, striking a pressure point. The spiky-haired boy groaned and fell to the ground, while Tokage poked one of Mineta's spheres and placed the sphere on Sato's leg before detaching her finger.

Sato was effectively pinned by his leg, but he continued to lash out at his two assailants, giving them a decent fight.

Meanwhile, Shoda struck at Ojiro with two palms, unleashing a wave of energy, which Ojiro swiftly dodged.

"Shoda," the boy called out. "I haven't seen you since the sports festival. How's it going?"

"Good," Shoda answered. "Too bad none of us can remember our time together."

As the fight went on, Awase stepped around the combat to face Sero, who was standing back, waiting for an opportunity to ensnare someone with his tape. He shrunk as Awase drew near.

 _Where are the others?,_ he wondered.

* * *

Kaminari banged on the door to the hallway battleground.

"Dammit, it won't open. Why does the door have to jam now, of all times?"

"I don't know!" Mina was burning a hole through the door with her hands, but she was having trouble. "Why did we ever decide to reinforce the door with titanium?"

"I don't think it's jammed," Koda added. "See how it's melded into the frame? That's Awase's doing."

His classmates looked at the door and nodded.

Aoyama spoke up: "Mina, stand aside!"

Mina obliged, and Aoyama twisted a dial on his utility belt.

"Prepare yourselves for 'Navel Laser: Surgical Edition'."

He sent a narrow laser beam out of his torso and cut between the door and the frame. Soon enough, all the fused metal had been burned through, and the door fell.

"Thank me later!" he stepped through the now-empty door frame.

"Why couldn't you have done that before?" Mina called after him. Aoyama only twinkled his eyes mysteriously.

Sighing, she followed her teammates into the fray.

* * *

From the fourth floor, Yaoyorozu listened to the commotion downstairs as she stared into the streets below.

In all likelihood, her team was winning. Class A had more experience, and they had the home-turf advantage.

But she was still concerned about something.

 _Shouldn't there be more people?_ After hearing Ochako's report, she knew Class B had fifteen people to spare.

 _So shouldn't Class B have sent more than seven people in?_

Before Yaoyorozu could ponder any further, her wristwatch started beeping.

It could only mean one thing.

 _Someone removed the flag_!

Before she could act, she felt something constrict around her neck. She turned, finding herself face-to-face with Shiozaki.

"Sorry about this, Yaoyorozu."

* * *

Two minutes previously, Class B's Togaru Kamakiri was cutting through a window with his sharpened hands.

"Can you work any faster?" Rin asked. "I'm losing my grip."

The duo was hanging four stories above the ground, and it was thanks only to Kamakiri's bug-like climbing abilities that they both didn't fall.

"When we break in," Kamikiri explained, "I'll get Shiozaki while you go for the flag. You know what to do from there, right?"

Rin nodded as he donned his chameleon scales, rendering himself partially invisible. When Kamakiri finished cutting a hole with his arm-scythes, he pushed the glass inwards and climbed through while Rin dismounted from his back.

Quietly, Rin moved towards the Command Room, unnoticed by Yaoyorozu, who was staring out a different window. He creaked open the door and moved inside.

 _Wow_. Class A had somehow picked out six possible locations for Class B's base.

 _Very impressive research. Though, as it turns out, our strategy worked far better._

He grabbed the flag from its pedestal, unknowingly triggering Yaoyorozu's wrist-mounted alarm, and turned to exit the room.

On his way back to the window, he passed Kamakiri and Shiozaki, the latter of which held a struggling Yaoyorozu.

He leaned out the hole in the window and shouted.

"Kendo! I have the flag!"

"Great!" Kendo replied. "Now throw it down!"

Still struggling in Shiozaki's stranglehold, Yaoyorozu needed to act fast. In her mind's eye, she pictured a simple chemical that could help her out of her bind:

N2O. Laughing gas.

She held her breath and willed every pore in her body to produce the substance. The Class B students quickly found themselves lightheaded.

Weakened, Rin dropped the flag through the hole in the window before falling unconscious along with his other teammates.

Clearheaded amidst all the panic, Yaoyorozu created a gas mask and a bungee cord, which she tied around the Command Room's door handle. With the other end of the bungee cord still connected to her body, she dove out the hole in the window after her flag.

The cord caught her fall right before she hit the ground, and she made a grab for the flag, only to be beaten by Kendo, who quickly sprinted away.

"Shit!" Yaoyorozu detached the bungee cord and started to run after Kendo.

 _If she gets away, we lose_.

Yaoyorozu rounded a corner only to find her boots stuck in a puddle of glue.

The golem-like body of Class B's Kojiro Bondo made itself visible.

 _The glue man_.

Desperately trying to pursue Kendo, Yaoyorozu slipped out of her boots, only to fall face first in the sticky puddle. She tried to move, but her body wouldn't let her. She could only watch in despair as Kendo disappeared into the darkness with the Red Team's flag.

A safe distance away, Kendo stopped to catch her breath.

 _Momo almost got me back there_ , she thought. _She's tenacious. I'll give her that._

Her buzzing phone interrupted her train of thought. It was Momona. She picked it up.

"Good news, Momona. I have the flag!"

" _ **Yeah, about that…"**_ Momona answered uncomfortably.

"What?"

" _ **We kinda lost ours. We have no idea what happened to it.**_ "

"What!?"

" _ **Yeah. And we lost all of our prisoners.**_ "

"WHAT!?'

" _ **So, if you could get back to base with the flag, that would be great!**_ "

He hung up.

* * *

 **That's Chapter 5. Thanks for reading!**

 **Next, we'll learn how Monoma 'lost' the flag.**

 **Leave a review if you have anything good (or bad) to say about my work. I'm always looking for ways to improve my writing.**


	6. Race Against Time

**Chapter 6**

* * *

 _One hour earlier..._

Todoroki sighed as the Class B guardswoman escorted him through her stronghold. Their setup was pretty much the same as Class A's: they had a lobby, a kitchen, boys' and girls' quarters, and now, on the uppermost floor, a jail and command room. Todoroki had caught a glimpse of their blue flag as he was shoved into prison.

"Don't worry," Kodai shouted after him. "The game won't be going on for much longer, so you won't need to wait."

She slammed the door shut.

 _Annoying_ , Todoroki thought, turning to face his fellow captives:

Bakugou, Kirishima, Midoriya, and Iida. Together with Todoroki, the five of them were perhaps the strongest in the class. In some manner, each of them had fought a villain and emerged victorious.

Ironic how each of them had been so easily captured.

"Half-and-Half? You got yourself caught too?" Bakugou pounded an explosive fist into his palm. "How did those Class B cowards string up _you_ of all people?"

"They didn't do anything. I turned myself in because I knew I couldn't take their base alone."

Iida noticed something fishy: "Alone? But what about the rest-"

" _Alone_ ," Todoroki reasserted. He placed a finger over his mouth in the universal symbol for silence. His classmates got the hint and shut up.

"So, Todoroki," Kirishima grinned. "You really jeopardized the team by surrendering. Was it possible that, in the heat of the moment, the consequences of giving up went _unseen_?"

Todoroki nodded. "It was certain that I would not be able to storm their base without considerable luck or some _deception_."

Midoriya was confused. "Why are you all emphasizing certain words?"

Before Bakugou could tell him to shut it, their conversation was interrupted by the jail door, which creaked open.

"Todoroki is right. Our base is too well-fortified for any sort of assault. Thanks to my genius, of course."

Todoroki didn't even need to look at the boy to know who it was.

"Monoma."

"-Genius which, as it seems, has ensnared you, the oh-so-glorious poster boys of Class 1-A."

"Shut up, Monoma," Bakugou spat. "We don't want to hear anything more about your dumb plan."

"Bakugou." If the boy's evil smile could get any wider, his face would have split open. "Don't be a sore loser." He walked over to the spiky-haired boy and brushed his hand across his arm.

"I'll give you this: your quirk is truly amazing. Such a shame that it's in such incapable hands." He activated Bakugou's quirk, letting sparks fly over the palm of his hand.

Bakugou didn't say a word. He was too busy brainstorming ways to kill the boy without getting in trouble.

Monoma continued his rant, walking over to Kirishima: "Like buffoons, you two fell right into our trap and allowed your squadmates to lead us back to your base, which is under siege as we speak." He brushed his hand against Kirishima's arm and raised own arm, which was covered in hardened skin. "In other words, you lost."

"I wouldn't be sure of that," Midoriya shot back. "Our base is _very_ well defended."

"I'm sure it is." Monoma chuckled. "But we can bypass those defences by sending someone up the side of the building."

Midoriya tried picture who in Class B could have the ability to climb walls, but his mind drew a blank. Yet another reminder of their lack of knowledge concerning their rival class.

"You and Iida really screwed up as well," the boy continued. "I heard Iida ran right into a wall at full speed, and heroic _Deku_ jumped in to rescue him, only to find himself in the middle of our ambush."

"Hey!" Bakugou shouted. "Fuck off. Only _I_ can call him that."

Monoma ignored him as he continued talking, walking closer to Midoriya:

"I always wanted to use your overpowered quirk, but I never got the chance."

"Wait, no!" the boy replied, understanding what Momona wanted to do, but the blond boy continued talking:

"No time like the present, I suppose." He reached down to touch Midoriya.

"Don't do this, Momona! Your body isn-"

"I can use any quirk, _Deku_." His eyes widened in shock as his hand brushed against Midoriya's.

"So much power…" He balled his hand into a fist.

"Don-" Midoriya was cut off by the explosion that erupted when Monoma pumped his arm. The boy had unwittingly released a 'Detroit Smash' at 100% power, which displaced the air and sent high-speed shockwaves towards the ceiling, instantly ripping it apart. The Class A prisoners had to hold onto each other to avoid being pushed out the newly-formed hole.

"Monoma, what's going on? You almost woke Reiko-" Yui Kodai stopped speaking when she opened the jail door and noticed a surprising lack of jail. Only the innermost walls of the jail remained. The rest of it had crumbled. She noticed Monoma on the ground, groaning. His entire left sleeve was blown off, and his arm looked like it had been through a meat grinder; it was bent in ways it should not have been able to bend.

"What did they do to you?" She turned to the boys. "I get he's annoying, but prisoners are _not_ supposed to resist unless they are freed."

"W-wait, it's not like that," Midoriya explained. "He used my quirk. It has a lot of kickback at full power, and, well, he used it at full power."

"Good thing he aimed it at the ceiling and not at the ground," Kirishima mused. "Else we'd be standing in a crater right now." The rest of Midoriya's classmates were stunned. Besides Kirishima, none of them had been present for any of his 100% Detroit Smashes.

Kodai walked over to examine a groaning Monoma more closely.

"The whole arm's shattered. He will have to see Recovery Girl when we win."

" _When_ you win?" Todoroki was standing up, now. "All of you Class B students sound WAY too confident."

"Well, looking at the facts, there's not much you can do, is there?" Kodai sounded confident, but her voice wavered.

 _Was there something we forgot?_

She looked down and noticed that the capture tape had been removed from Todoroki's wrists.

 _Shit_.

"I can do _this_."

In one swift motion, he activated his quirk and encased the lower half of his captors' bodies in a block of solid ice.

Todoroki's fellow captives looked on, wide-eyed. It was quite a sudden turn of events.

"Todoroki," Iida began to ask, "how did you get free?"

Todoroki smiled.

* * *

 _Five minutes previously_ …

Hagakure followed closely behind her classmate as Kodai escorted him to jail. It was simple getting through the front door, really. All she needed to do was grab it before it closed. Any onlooker would have merely seen the door falter for a minute, perhaps blown by a sudden gust of wind.

 _Class B's base is surprisingly empty,_ she noticed. _Maybe everyone's at ours, trying to steal the flag_.

Earlier, the exam was a test of strategy. Now that each base had been discovered, it was a race against time.

 _Who will be able to capture the flag faster_?

She followed the captive and captor up the flights of stairs as they approached the jail. Before they entered, Hagakure stopped.

 _Better to wait for an opportunity than to risk exposing myself now._

She shrunk to the wall and held her breath when she saw Kodai exit and Monoma enter the jail. When Kodai walked downstairs, Hagakure let out a sigh of relief.

"I know you're there," a quiet voice said from beside her.

She jumped and turned to face the voice. How had anybody seen her?

"I'm talking to you, invisible girl." She gasped.

A black-skinned boy was facing her. His skin was literally black. She would have mistaken his skin for a full-body nylon suit if his eyes and white hair weren't clearly visible.

 _She had been discovered_.

"I'm Kuroiro," the boy said. "Surrender now so I don't have to chase you all over the place."

Trembling, Hagakure finally spoke up: "How did you find me?"

"I heard an extra set of footsteps. Due to nature of my quirk, I have thoroughly trained my non-visual senses."

"What's your quirk?"

"It's called 'Black,' and it lets me attract photons, leaving my areain darkness. Useful for throwing off villains, or otherwise unworthy opponents. I'll use it now to put you at a disadvantage."

 _Why am I telling her this?_

That was all Hagakure needed. As he prepared his quirk, she twisted her torso, creating an array of concentrated light beams. The way light acted around her body allowed her to amplify the particles and generate heat, thus creating weak lasers. They weren't enough to do damage, but if she created them in her whole body…

When Kuroiro activated his quirk, he felt his skin burn and immediately recoiled. Hagakure's scattered beams of concentrated light had all hit his chest— the epicenter of the vortex. Hagakure took advantage of the boy's momentary surprise and struck his temple, putting him in a daze.

 _Just like training_. She had practiced a fair amount of unarmed combat in preparation for a life as a hero without equipment, and it was paying off. She delivered another blow to his head, knocking him out.

 _Why didn't call out when he noticed me? Maybe he's just quiet..._

Hagakure stopped speculating when she realized she was in possession of a body that needed hiding.

 _Lets not allow anyone to you._

She looked around. The jail was occupied, and Kodai was downstairs, so she dragged him into the now-empty Command Room and shut the door.

" _We'll come back for you later,_ " she whispered to the blue flag. She would have to bolster her forces first.

 _Now, time to wait for an opening_.

 ***BOOM***

She felt the entire building rock, and heard what sounded like girly screaming. Moments later, Kodai rushed upstairs, berating Monoma for the noise he was making.

 _There's my opening_.

She creeped into the jail, repeating her door-opening technique behind Kodai. The room was in carnage, and Monoma was on the floor.

 _What happened here?_

Hagakure shook her head, shivering. The cold temperature was starting to catch up to her.

 _Not important. Above all things, I need to think about freeing my portable heater._

As Midoriya explained what happened, Hagakure slipped over to Todoroki and unwrapped the capture tape from his wrists.

" _You're free,"_ she whispered. " _Now give me some heat."_

Todoroki silently nodded and activated his quirk weak enough to disguise the flame. Gleeful, Hagakure embraced his left side.

" _You're_ _ **great**_ _at keeping my body temperature up_!"

Todoroki didn't outwardly acknowledge his classmate's flirtatious words. Stoic, as always.

" _I'll get a reaction from you, eventually._ " She silently giggled. "Maybe _I'll have to cover myself in paint..."_

Todoroki frowned at the thought.

" _Ha, a reaction. The first of many…_ "

Her thoughts turned back to Kodai. She was saying something.

"... will have to see recovery girl when we win," Kodai continued.

Now freed, Todoroki spoke up:

" _When_ you win? All of you Class B students sound WAY too confident."

"Well, looking at the facts, there's not much you can do, is there?"

 _Little does she know_ , thought Hagakure.

Todoroki sassily replied, "I can do _this_ ," before freezing the others in a block of ice.

There was a momentary pause.

"Todoroki, how did you get free?" Iida asked.

The boy smiled. "I knew I'd get lonely, so I brought Hagakure along with me."

Hagakure blushed with pride.

Iida grinned. "Ingenious! Now let's get out of here."

* * *

"Hagakure, our savior, you do the honors."

Hagakure and the freed captors were standing in front of the Blue Team flag. They had made it! Wasting no time, Hagakure removed the shaft from its holder. It was heavy in her hands.

"Todoroki, you carry it!" She shoved the flag at her friend and pushed by her teammates. "Let's waste no time! The clock is ticking and our team needs our help!"

Her team followed her.

"You'll have to tell us how you knocked out Kuroiro," Midoriya said.

"Sure, but only if you tell me how the jail exploded."

As they walked downstairs, they filled each other in on what had happened. They met Shoji and Jiro in front of the base.

"Monoma." Jiro laughed at the story. "What an idiot."

Midoriya nodded. "He was pretty badly hurt. My quirk is dangerous in an unprepared body."

"I could probably use it just fine," Hagakure laughed. "I'm strong!"

Midoriya shuddered to imagine an invisible version of All Might. _Though,_ he thought, _invisibility and All for One would make an interesting combination. I'll have to draft out some strategies in my notebook_.

"There was another guy in the base," Kirishima added. "Kaibara, I think it was? But he left a while ago."

Midoriya nodded. "Probably freeing Tsuburaba from the flipped container."

"Flipped container?" Jiro smirked. "You'll have to tell us about that one."

"Please do, Midoriya," Todoroki said. "But first, Iida or Midoriya should take the flag and use theirquirks to get back to base as quick as possible."

"We don't need to go around the bay," Midoriya offered. "That would take too long. Why don't you freeze us a path across?"

"Excellent idea."

They jogged for a few minutes to the edge of the water.

"Hold on," Todoroki said. He placed his right hand in the water, freezing the surrounding liquid into ice. It spread until an entire portion of the bay was covered.

"Let's cross."

* * *

Gingerly jogging over the slippery surface, they made good time and reached the other side after thirty minutes of running.

On the far shore, Iida turned to Midoriya.

"I'll take the flag, now. Can you keep up?"

Midoriya nodded. "I'll guard you."

The bespectacled boy revved his calf-engines while his friend activated Full Cowling. Iida took of in a dead sprint while Midoriya bounded close behind.

* * *

Not ten seconds later, the duo noticed something and came to a halt, finding themselves face-to-face with Itsuka Kendo. The orange-haired girl looked from the blue flag in Iida's hands back to her own red flag.

"Well, isn't this awkward?"

Midoriya was quick to action. "Iida, take the flag! I'll deal with her." Iida took off in a sprint, but Kendo blocked him with an enlarged hand.

"No you don't!" She swung the pole of her flag, wielding it like a staff as she swept out Iida's feet. The boy fell, rolling a few feet as he decelerated from his high speed. He still held on to the red flag.

Kendo reached for the blue flag, but Midoriya flicked two of his fingers, unleashing a well-aimed 'Delaware Smash' at the girl. She was knocked back a few feet and Midoriya took the flag from Iida and kept on running toward their base.

"Give up," Iida told her from the ground. "You won't get to your base before Midoriya gets to ours."

Kendo loomed over him as he struggled to his feet.

"I still have a chance! My classmates are still in your base! They can stop him!"

Iida pushed his glasses to his face. "Then, as President of Class A, I will take back our flag, just to be safe!"

Kendo smiled. "As President of Class B, I'll meet your challenge!"

They squared off.

Iida fired off his Reciprico Burst as he sprinted towards Kendo, hoping to take her off guard, but Kendo remembered how he used that very same strategy against Todoroki in the Sports Festival. As he neared, she sidestepped, enlarging her hand and clotheslining Iida.

Iida slid to the ground, stunned.

 _I'll have to fight until my quirk comes back._

With the pole of the flag, Kendo jabbed towards Iida, barely giving him any time to roll away. She repeated the process, attacking furiously until Iida was backed up against a storefront with nowhere to run.

Gritting his teeth, Iida pushed against the wall and lunged for his opponent. She dodged, but his hand caught onto the fabric and he ripped it from her hand.

"Hey, give that back!"

She dove for her improvised staff, but Iida sent a superpowered kick at her torso.

"My quirk is back, now!"

He sent another roundhouse kick, and Kendo ducked and grabbed his leg. But the leg was moving too fast, and she was spun around and knocked to the ground. She felt a few ribs crack.

 _Oof_.

But she felt a familiar object under her. _The flag_. As Iida lunged again, she grabbed the pole and pushed into his chest, knocking the wind out of the boy. She got up and twirled the pole in her hand, knocking him in the head. He fell and was promptly pinned to the ground.

"I win."

Then her phone buzzed. Placing a knee on the defeated boy's chest, she whipped out her phone.

Her heart fell when she read the message:

 **Game over. Red team wins!**

So despite their best efforts, Class B had lost. Midoriya must have made it back to their base.

 _Oh well…_

But the feelings of disappointment in her chest turned to feelings of fear when she read the rest of the message:

 **Evacuate Immediately. This is not a test.**

 **.**

 **.**

 **.**

* * *

 **Ooh, a cliff hanger! I hope you enjoyed this chapter!**

 **After reading one of the reviews, it occurred to me that my creation of a few of the Class B students' quirks could have left readers in confusion. To ease some uncertainty, here is a list of all the quirks I've made up:**

 **.**

 **Tokage - Ability to detach fingers and limbs and have them grow back.**

 **Kaibara - Ability to oscillate his body really fast. Useful for digging.**

 **Kamakiri - Can climb things like a praying mantis can, has sharp fingers.**

 **Kuroiro - Attracts all photons in a small area, creating absolute darkness. (By the way, he didn't call for help when he first saw Hagakure**

 **because he's shy and he doesn't like to yell).**

 **Komori - Increased strength in darkness.**

 **Shishida - Monster-like strength and speed, low IQ**

 **Shoda - Creates shockwaves by striking with two palms**

 **Tsunotori - Attributes of a bull in the body of a girl. Allows her to swiftly gallop and charge with her horns.**

 **Fukidashi - Writes words on his speech bubble face, also has the ability to fight with the tenacity of a Shonen Protagonist**

 **Reiko Yanagi - Creates illusions, very similar to Camie**

 **Rin - Can cover his body with scales. Chameleon scales give him semi-invisibility while armored scales give him protection**

 **.**

 **I will be wrapping the story with an extra long final chapter, so stay tuned! After this, I'm going to work on my next MHA story, which will be a larger-scale fic that gives Midoriya a veeery different origin story which alters the whole plot of MHA.**

 **Hopefully, I will have improved as a writer since I first started. Thanks for reading it, and thanks for any positive/constructive feedback!**


	7. Finale

**Sorry for the long wait. As the finale, this chapter is longer in length, and thus took longer to write.**

* * *

 **Chapter 7**

* * *

 _Twenty minutes earlier…_

"Kendo has the flag!"

Shota Aizawa looked up from the conference table to see the other teachers' reactions. Each of his coworkers looked on with intensity, and Nezu was twitching in obvious excitement. Vlad beamed in pride, hiding well his concern for his homeroom students' position in the exercise.

"Class A is still going to win," assured Midnight, beaming at Present Mic, who scowled. A few teachers had placed bets on the outcome of the match, and Present Mic seemed to be losing.

"You don't know that, yet," grumbled Mic, earning a few chuckles from his colleagues.

"Mic's just upset that he placed three-to-one odds on Class B's victory when Todoroki turned himself in." Cementos continued to chuckle.

"How was I supposed to know about Invisible Girl?" wailed the announcer, already mentally preparing to fork over 30,000 Yen. Class B's chances were getting slimmer and slimmer.

After all, Hagakure's group had a significant head start over Kendo. Class B would need to somehow stop the blue flag from reaching their enemies' command room while ensuring that Kendo herself was not waylaid.

"Whatever happens is gonna happen soon," mused Snipe. Each flag was nearing their target location.

The UA campus was in a state of confusion and disarray. After every single member of the faculty had called in sick earlier (no doubt so they could spectate the Capture-the-Flag game through hidden cameras placed in various spots around the city), the Principal had called a school-wide day off, much to the delight of the students and teachers. Now, while their students puzzled over the cause of their impromptu holiday, the teachers gathered in Nezu's office around the holographic conference table.

The teachers had been impressed with Midoriya's and Ochako's research, and had been equally impressed with Monoma's defensive array of traps and probes. They all cringed when Bakugou and Kirishima fell for the illusion, and when Midoriya and Iida fell into the trap, but every teacher had cheered on their favorite students in the following battles.

"Ms. Ashido has improved since her midyear practical exam," Nezu noted.

"Though she should have called somebody before jumping into the fray," Aizawa added. "I'll be docking some points for that oversight."

"Though," the Principal added, "time was of the essence. Her immediate actions were what saved Kaminari Denki from being captured."

Aizawa nodded in agreement. There was no arguing with the principal.

Number 13, meanwhile, had only praise for Ochako.

"Her hand-to-hand technique is _amazing_. As expected of a pupil under both Gunhead and Ryogoku."

"Ms. Asui has improved as well," added Ectoplasm. "The two work well as a team. They should open a hero agency together."

Aizawa grunted at his co-workers' analysis of his students. He already knew what they could do. He was more anxious to watch Class B's performance.

He approved of Kendo's strategism and leadership, but he was disappointed in Monoma.

Sure, the boy's strategy had led his team right to Class A's base, but he was egotistical. Like a villain. In fact, while he was preening himself, the boy had needlessly copied and activated Midoriya's dangerous quirk, injuring himself in the process.

He would have to talk to Vlad about properly disciplining the kid. Perhaps the boy could learn his lesson in a duel with a professional hero. Monoma could benefit from some forced humility. After all, his vanity could have cost his team the game.

 _But it's not over yet_ , thought Aizawa, looking at the display.

"Hey, look here!" shouted Present Mic. "The Presidents are squaring off."

All attention turned to the hero's monitor.

"Midoriya has the flag and he's running for his base," All Might explained. "And Iida's trying to stall Kendo."

Aizawa watched as Iida charged towards Kendo.

 _Sloppy_ , he thought. _But Kendo's a good fighter. Could Iida be at a disadvantage here despite his superior quirk?_ Now, Iida was on the back foot as Kendo jabbed at him repeatedly with her improvised flag-staff.

As the teachers watched the fight progress, Nezu noticed a blinking red light in his peripheral vision. Some sort of alarm had been triggered.

The rodent-man rolled his chair towards the source of the disruption, which was a map of the Shimizu-ku ward. The blinking light was accompanied by a message:

" **Alert: Extreme Weather Conditions"**

Concerned, Nezu turned to the head of the Support Staff.

"Power Loader, can you come check this out?"

The helmeted man turned away from the action, curious.

"What's going on?"

"I was about to ask you the same question." He gestured to the screen as Power Loader walked over.

"What do we have here?" the mechanised man asked as he examined the screen. The skin on his face suddenly got paler. "Oh no."

"What?" Nezu asked.

"Tsunami," was all Power Loader could say.

Nezu's eyes narrowed. "But you said your earthquake only created a small wave! Only a couple of feet! How come it's activating the weather sensors?" Tsunamis had plagued Japan for centuries. Even most professional heroes were powerless against the destructive walls of water. A dangerous tsunami near the students could only mean bad news.

"Something else happened to make the wave taller. Maybe some unpredictable aftershocks." He examined the map some more.

"How dangerous is it?"

"Not very. There will be extensive property damage on the coast, but nobody will be hurt, since the area's evacuated."

"But the students are in the danger area."

"Yes, meaning that you should contact the children immediately and tell them to evacuate." The pro hero paused, weighing the situation. "Also, send some teachers in. Better safe than sorr-"

The man was interrupted by Present Mic, who, like the other teachers, had started to listen in on their conversation.

"Um, excuse me for interrupting," the announcer began. "But can we wait for the match to be over before evacuating?" in front of his tiny boss, the man felt timid, but he looked into the rodent's eyes with hopeful confidence. Present Mic, like the other teachers, anxiously wanted to see the game's conclusion.

"P-preposterous," sputtered Power Loader. "We're talking about a natural disaster!"

"But _sir!_ " shouted Midnight, coming to Present Mic's defense. "The game won't take any longer than a few minutes! _Look!_ " She pointed to her monitor, where it showed Midoriya running with the flag, his base in sight.

Voice calm, Aizawa chimed in:

"Ending the match now will negatively affect our students' morale. Questions like 'which class performed better' or 'did I succeed or fail' will never be answered. Better to give our students a concrete end."

He sighed before he continued. "Plus, Present Mic will owe me money."

Nezu contemplated the man's words. Sure, every second wasted was dangerous, but the students had worked too hard for their efforts to be simply thrown away. He made up his mind.

"Okay. I will allow the game to end before issuing the evacuation order. But if it takes any longer than three minutes for a victor to be decided, I'm calling it."

"Thank you, sir," Aizawa said simply.

Then, he turned his attention back to Class A's base, where the fate of the match would be determined.

* * *

The Class B invaders had been quickly subdued after the defenders had been bolstered by Aoyama's group.

When they had breached the doors, Kaminari fired his pointers at Tokage and Tsunatori, knocking them out and saving Sato's pinned body from a merciless beating.

Meanwhile, Aoyama had ended the hand-to-hand fight between Ojiro and Shoda by firing a laser at the latter's leg. Ojiro mumbled something about a 'dishonorable fight' as he reached down to help his crippled opponent.

Mina fired an acid blast at Awase, giving Sero an opening to stick his opponent with tape. As Sero reeled him opponent in, Awase fused the soles of his own shoes to the floor and pulled back, forcing Sero to his knees. But another attack from Mina had dissolved the headbanded boy's sneakers and Awase was pulled to the ground.

The fight between Tokayami and Komori was slightly more difficult to break up. None of the onlookers could get close without risking his or her life. The mushroom girl's superstrengthened attacks were powerful enough to displace the air and create rippling shockwaves, while Tokayami was doing everything he could to keep Dark Shadow in check. Komori was subdued, however, by a well-thrown purple sphere that caught on the bottom of her foot, while Kaminari brightened the room by coating himself in bright beams of electricity, returning Dark Shadow to a controllable state.

The Class A defenders looked at each grinning. They had quelled Class B's attack.

Or so they believed. They had no idea that Kendo had already taken their flag.

* * *

Full Cowing activated, Midoriya bounded toward the base at full speed. By now, the fourth floor was visible from down below, and Midoriya was close enough to see the Kamikiri's hole in the window.

" _Odd,_ " Midoriya mumbled to himself. " _They must have smuggled the flag out through that hole. But how did they get up there in the first place?_ "

As he mumbled, he passed Bondo, who was trying to pull Yaoyorozu free from her gluey prison. The large boy turned to face Midoriya, but the boy had already bounded past him and up to the base of the building.

 _I don't know if there are any enemies in the base,_ he thought. _So my best course of action is…_

"One For All 20%: Full Cowling!"

He channeled the supernatural energy throughout his whole body and crouched. Deku uncoiled like a spring, leaping into the air. After boosting his ascent with a few fingertip Delaware Smashes, he landed on the roof of the base.

" _Now, to find the Command Room,_ " he mumbled. He carried the flag over to the spot directly above the conference table.

Inside the building, Shiozaki was beginning to wake up when she heard a loud crash. She groggily rubbed her eyes.

"Huh?"

It wasn't until the crash sounded again when she realized what was going on.

She stumbled to her feet and rushed into the Command Room, but it was too late. She saw Midoriya drop through the newly-formed hole in the ceiling and roll towards the flag post. She caught a flash of blue cloth in the boy's hand.

 _No!_

Midoriya lifted the blue flag and shoved it into the flag pedestal.

 _We won!_

He noticed Shiozaki, who was looking at the ground in defeat. She wore a dejected expression on her face.

"How did you get free?"

Before she could answer, both of their phones started ringing. His jubilance was replaced with confusion when he read the message.

 **Game over. Red team wins!**

 **Evacuate Immediately. This is not a test.**

"What's this about?" Midoriya asked the girl.

Shiozaki shrugged. "I'm afraid I do not know. I hope the others are okay." She turned away from the boy, cheeks flushed in humiliation at her team's loss.

Midoriya pulled out his phone. "How about we check on them?"

* * *

Tetsutetsu gasped as he waded onto the shore. The hour-long swim to solid ground was tough, but he made it, thanks to his excellent physical strength.

 _Damn, Ochako_ , he thought. _If I were a weaker person, I might have drowned!_

The boy took in his surroundings, and his heart fell. He did not like what he saw. He was surrounded by five members of Class A: Bakugou, Kirishima, Jiro, Shoji, and Todoroki.

He collapsed to his knees.

"I'm too tired to fight you all. I surrender."

Bakugou snarled. "As if you stood a chance, even at full health." Tetsutetsu sunk even further under the boy's sharp gaze.

Todoroki intervened. "Surrender will not be necessary. The game will end soon, and we stand nothing to gain by taking you in."

Todoroki filled his opponent in on what was going on, not missing a detail.

"So, Monoma broke his arm and Class A and B have each others' flags?"

"Basically," Todoroki answered. The students glanced at each other.

"What now?" Tetsutetsu asked.

"We wait."

The group settled into an awkward silence.

"Soooo," Kirishima began. "How did you end up in the bay?"

"Long story," Tetsutetsu replied.

His hand went to his pocket as his phone buzzed.

"Thank god for waterproof phones!" The Class B boy was surprised to see the others reach for their phones as he did.

"Yes!" shouted Jiro as she read the message. "We won!"

Tetsutetsu's spirits fell even lower when he read the message, but he was also confused.

"Why do we need to evacuate, though?"

"Dunno," Jiro said. "It's mysterious, but we should probably run for the hills. We're in a tsunami zone, remember?"

Tetsutetsu _did_ remember watching the news, but Vlad had told them that the exercise would be completely safe.

 _There isn't going to be an actual tsunami, right?_

"Guys?"

The group turned towards Kirishima, who was pointing behind them. They turned again to notice a rapidly shrinking shoreline.

"How about we run, NOW!"

* * *

"Kaibara, get me out of here!"

"I'm working on it!"

A panicked Juzo Honenuki was shouting from his hole in the ground as the flood water approached his face. His friend, Sen Kaibara, was jackhammering away at the asphalt with his hands as Tsuburaba created shields of air to block the water's advance.

"Almost there," the dark-haired boy said through gritted teeth as he chipped away at the asphalt around his friend's shoulders. Some more rock crumbled and the boy was free. "Gotcha. Now, pull yourself out and use your quirk!

Honenuki obliged, freeing himself from his asphalt prison and surrounding the boys in quicksand. The water sunk through the sand, but it was approaching fast. The boys would need a way out of there.

"Let's get to high ground," Tsuburaba suggested, pointing at a container stack. "The wave will never reach that high!"

"But the boxes will fall," Honenuki complained. "We'll end up in the churning water!"

"I can deal with that," Tsuburaba reassured. "But we need to get up there first."

* * *

Tsuyu and Ochako nearly ran into Todoroki's group as they fled from the approaching wave.

"Hi, guys," Tsuyu croaked. "Tetsutetsu, long time no see!"

The steel boy grumbled.

She continued: "So apparently, the tsunami is real, huh?"

Kirishima nodded. "Yeah. I hope the people back at Class B's base are okay!"

"Wait," said Ochako. "There are people in Class B's base?"

"Yeah," Kirishima answered. "But most of them are injured."

 _So they won't be able to escape_! Kirishima slapped his face at the realization.

"We need to go back for them!"

"Yeah!" Tetsutetsu shouted. "They're my classmates!"

"What do you mean _we_?" Todoroki asked. "If you stop running now, you'll be crushed by debris. I'll go instead."

The boy was right. While Kirishima's quirk greatly increased his durability, it had its limits, and the redhead doubted his armor would hold up against an entire tidal wave. The same logic applied to Tetsutetsu, who was already exhausted from his fight with Ochako.

 _But if we can't go, neither can Todoroki_.

"I can dam the incoming water with my ice," Todoroki explained. "Furthermore, I can use ice to create a navigable path over the water's surface. I'm the best man for the job."

Kirishima couldn't argue with that logic.

"Alright." Tetsutetsu stopped and bowed to the boy. "Bring them back alive!"

"If half-and-half can go, I sure-as-hell can!" Bakugou pumped his fist. Before Todoroki could protest, the blond continued: "I can move safely above the water by propelling myself with explosions. You're gonna need my help!"

"Okay," Todoroki said. "Bakugou, you're with me. Let's move out!"

The boys turned around and faced the tsunami as the others ran towards Class A's base. Before they could enter the swirling mass of debris, however, they heard a voice behind them.

"Wait!" shouted Ochako. "I'll come too."

Todoroki turned to face her. "You'll just get hurt."

Ochako's heart fell. _Maybe it's true..._

"No," Bakugou growled. "Let her come. She's more than capable of handling herself. Plus, her gravity-cancellation makes her better suited for this than we are."

Ochako looked at her unexpected advocate in surprise.

 _Is Bakugou being_ _ **nice**_ _to me?_ She shook her head, ridding herself of the ridiculous thought. _He's probably just being practical._

At the boy's words, Todoroki shut his mouth and turned around, at the same time blocking the street in front of them with a sheet of ice. The flow of the tsunami had advanced dangerously close while they were talking.

"Okay, then. Let's not waste any more time."

* * *

Back in Class A's lobby, the Class A and B students were frantically trying to figure out what was going on.

"So apparently there's a tsunami, as the news predicted," said Midoriya, phone out.

"But why would the teachers put us in danger like this?" Mineta asked. "Aren't they being pressured by the media to play it safe with us students?"

The group all sat and wondered at this question.

"I hate to suggest it, but perhaps the tsunami got out of the teachers' control." Iida pushed his glasses to his face. It was rare that the boy so blatantly questioned the authority of UA teachers.

"In that case," Kendo added, "the teachers might not be readily available to help us, which means that we need to fend for ourselves."

Yaoyorozu nodded. "Here, we have twenty-seven of the forty heroics students in the danger zone. That means thirteen of them are on their own."

"And three of the missing ones are injured in our base. It's unlikely that they'll be able to get Monoma to move with his shattered arm."

Kaminari cut in: "At this point, is there really anything we can do to help them? If we tried to help them and ran _towards_ the tidal wave, we'd just add to the number of students in danger!"

"B-but, there has to be _some_ way!" Midoriya shouted back. The boy didn't like the idea of running away while his fellow students were in danger.

"I agree with Midoriya," said Shiozaki. "We can't just leave them to die!"

"Do you have any ideas?" Kendo asked hopefully. The room sank back into silence. None of the students had any idea on how to rescue the missing students.

 _Are we completely hopeless?_ Midoriya asked himself.

The somber mood was broken when the lobby door swung open, revealing a muscular silhouette of a man with his hands on his hips.

"Don't fret, for **I AM HERE…** "

In a flash, All Might shrunk back into his weakened form, spitting a stream of blood.

"...to drive the bus," he finished.

 _I should really stop doing that_ , he thought. _I'm losing a lot of blood._

* * *

Kodai looked from the fourth floor window as the floodwaters approached.

She turned to face her patients. "So basically, we're screwed."

Monama just groaned in pain while Reiko lay still and Kuroiro sighed.

"Maybe Class A will come to help."

"I doubt it. They're probably dealing with their own problems right now."

"So what do we do?"

"I don't know. We could run, but it would be unheroic to leave Monoma behind, so I guess we'll wait here and hope the building doesn't collapse."

Kuroiro sighed again as the flood water advanced.

He looked at his classmate. "It was nice knowing you, Kod-"

Their emotional moment was ruined when the window's glass shattered as a blond streak burst into the room.

"I'm back!" Bakugou shouted as he got to his feet. "Where are the cripples?"

The three Class B students stared in shock.

"C'mon, guys. We don't have much time!"

Kodai broke out of her daze and spoke up: "Kuroiro and I are fine, but Reiko is still out cold and Monoma's arm is in pieces."

"Ochako can handle the girl…" he pointed towards the brunette who was climbing through the shattered window. "...And I'll carry Monoma."

The boy in question groaned.

"Don't worry." Bakugou grinned. "I'll make sure it's a bumpy ride."

"Bakugou," Ochako said as she lifted the weightless girl. "Todoroki has prepared an ice path out of the flood. We just need to jump out the window!"

Bakugou nodded as he lifted Monoma and made his way for the frame.

"Don't lag behind," he said over his shoulder.

"Wait," called Kodai, "Three of us are still at the docks."

Bakugou grinned. "Funny story…"

* * *

 _Five minutes ago..._

The three-man Class A rescue team made its way over the flooded terrain. Todoroki froze the water as he ran over the wave, Bakugou propelled himself through the air with controlled blasts, and Ochako leaped from building to building, aided by her zero-gravity.

 _We're nearing the place where we fought Tetsutetsu._ Ochako looked at the now-flooded shipyard.

"Wait," she shouted to the boys. "I see something." The others looked towards the shipyard.

"Are those guys... flying?"

One-hundred feet above the ruined container stacks stood Kaibara, Honenuki, and Tsuburaba, on seemingly thin air. They huddled together, looking at the carnage below.

"It's the boy's quirk, to solidify air," Bakugou explained. "They should be alright, if not a little cold. Let's continue on to the base."

* * *

"Ah, I see," said Kodai. "They'll be fine up there. Let's get moving."

* * *

Thirty minutes later, All Might arrived at UA with the bus full of thirty-seven exhausted students. Cementoss had returned with Ochako, Bakugou, Todoroki, and the other students soon after the bus was packed. Once he had met with them as they were exiting Class B's base, the hero had used his powers to block off streets and alleys so the fleeing students would have a safe passage to the bus.

"Are you sure we can leave them up there?" All Might asked the grey-faced man.

Cementoss nodded. "Tsuburaba's quirk doesn't have a cooldown, and I didn't have time to get up there, so I decided to leave them hanging in the sky. UA can send a drone with food to keep them alive until this all blows over."

All Might grinned. "Ignoring that little debacle, I would call this rescue mission a success! Now we can get these tired students back to their homeroom teachers for their final grades!"

Cementoss just shook his head, looking back at the exhausted heroics students.

"Out of the frying pan and into the fire."

* * *

Back in the classroom, Aizawa stood over his expectant students. All discussion of the game died down as Aizawa cleared his throat.

"You may have won the game, but that doesn't mean you still didn't fail."

A lot of students looked down, reevaluating their own performances.

 _Our research helped_ , Midoriya thought. _But I still easily fell for that trap. I'm going to be in trouble._

"Still, I've seen some improvement from earlier this year." The class' spirits lifted. "I'm impressed at the strategy you made, even though it fell apart, and I was impressed at your ability to improvise yourself out of the tough situation at the end."

He continued: "Each of you were graded based on three criterium: Combat, Teamwork, and Critical Thinking. Combat measures how effectively you applied yourselves in battle scenarios. Teamwork measures how well you worked with teammates, and Critical Thinking measures your ability to analyse a situation and improvise. You also got bonus points if you worked as a leader or as a strategist"

"Now, I will show each of your scores."

 **1.  
** **Momo Yaoyorozu**

 **Combat: 2  
** **Teamwork: 5  
** **Critical Thinking: 4  
** **Leadership Bonus: 5**

"While Yaoyorozu was bested by her opponent, Bondo, she took initiative in strategizing the base's defence and organizing her team's communications. She showed talent as a natural leader."

He turned to the girl. "Your split-second choice to create laughing gas was impressive, and you knocked out three of your opponents in one fell swoop. However, your failure to properly guard Shiozaki in the jail cost your team the flag. For next semester, I would implore you not to forget about the smaller things."

Jiro shot her friend a silent cheer.

The next couple of scorings flashed on the board. Soon, Izuku noticed his results:

 **2.  
** **Minoru Mineta**

 **Combat: 4  
** **Teamwork: 3  
** **Critical Thinking: 5  
** **Leadership Bonus: 0**

Mineta grinned and pumped his fists. His well-placed spheres had been instrumental in halting Class B's advance. Even though Yaoyorozu had done most of the planning, his critical thinking skills really shone when he neutralized Komori.

 **3.  
** **Izuku Midoriya**

 **Combat: 3  
** **Teamwork: 1  
** **Critical Thinking: 4  
** **Leadership bonus: 4**

 _I suppose I deserve the low Teamwork score for leaving my team behind in the shipyard. But my scores in the other sections were alright, I guess._

"Young Midoriya," Aizawa began. "You showed decent combat abilities when you were stalling Kendo, and your plan to enter your base through the roof won your team the game. You also helped lead your team by researching locations for Class B's base. However, you ineptly led your team into a trap in the shipyard, and it was only thanks to Ochako and Asui's quick-thinking that your squad made it out alive."

Midoriya nodded. _I should have listened to them before jumping into the trap._

 **4.  
** **Katsuki Bakugou**

 **Combat: 1  
** **Teamwork: 3  
** **Critical Thinking: 2  
** **Leadership Bonus: 3**

Bakugou growled. His attack on the illusory Monoma had cost him dearly.

"Bakugou. You foolishly walked right into an ambush and were promptly captured. However, you worked well with Todoroki and Ochako when they threatened Class B's base, and you played a key part in the planning process. You and Midoriya should both try to _think_ before you _act_ in high-pressure situations."

The blond boy nodded as Aizawa showed the next score:

 **5.  
** **Toru Hagakure**

 **Combat: 4  
** **Teamwork: 5  
** **Critical Thinking: 5  
** **Leadership Bonus: 0**

 **6.  
** **Shoto Todoroki**

 **Combat: 4  
** **Teamwork: 5  
** **Critical Thinking: 5  
** **Leadership Bonus: 1**

"Hagakure."

The invisible girl perked up while Todoroki remained still.

"While you initially gave up your position in Class B's base, you subdued Kuroiro by using your quirk and hand-to-hand skills effectively and efficiently. Your infiltration plan with Todoroki was well-executed and ultimately successful. Because of your actions, Class A was able to come back from behind and ultimately win."

"Todoroki, meanwhile, lead his squad well and orchestrated the entire infiltration plan. He subdued Kodai and Monoma and created a useful shortcut over the bay."

Hagakure blushed in pride, though nobody noticed.

"Next," Aizawa said.

 **7.  
** **Fumikage Tokoyami**

 **Combat: 3  
** **Teamwork: 3  
** **Critical Thinking: 4  
** **Leadership Bonus: 0**

The bird boy bowed his head. While he couldn't beat Komori, he fought her to a stalemate. It was his idea to dim the hallway lights before attacking the Class B invaders, but the plan backfired because he didn't know Komori's quirk.

 **8.  
** **Hanta Sero**

 **Combat: 2  
** **Teamwork: 4  
** **Critical Thinking: 3  
** **Leadership Bonus: 0**

"Fair enough," said Sero. He had been overpowered and outsmarted by Awase, but he still took the boy out once Mina arrived to help.

 **9.  
** **Kyoka Jiro**

 **Combat: 1  
** **Teamwork: 5  
** **Critical Thinking: 4  
** **Leadership Bonus: 0**

 **10.  
** **Mezo Shoji**

 **Combat: 1  
** **Teamwork: 5  
** **Critical Thinking: 4  
** **Leadership Bonus: 0**

Jiro inclined her head, pleased at her grade. She and Shoji had stayed out of combat, but they devised the Class B base infiltration plan and scouted out the building before Todoroki turned himself in.

 **11.  
** **Rikido Sato**

 **Combat: 3  
** **Teamwork: 3  
** **Critical Thinking: 3  
** **Leadership Bonus: 0**

While Tsunotori and Tokage had him on the back foot, Sato had put up a good fight, and he had worked with Echo Squad to sneak up on Class B's invasion force.

 **12.  
** **Koji Koda  
**

 **Combat: 4  
** **Teamwork: 5  
** **Critical Thinking: 4  
** **Leadership Bonus: 0**

Koda beamed at his score. Working along with the rest of Delta Squad, his winged animal trap had put two Class B invaders out of commision.

 **13.  
** **Eijiro Kirishima**

 **Combat: 1  
** **Teamwork: 2  
** **Critical Thinking: 1  
** **Leadership Bonus: 0**

"Oof," Kirishima said out loud. His grade was perhaps the worst in the class. After falling for Reiko's trap, the boy did not have any opportunities to redeem himself.

"Kirishima," Aizawa began. "Even with your durability quirk, you will not be able to charge at everything and win. Let this poor grade serve as a lesson to _think_ before you _act_."

"Yes, sir!" shouted Kirishima.

"Next," Aizawa said.

 **14.  
** **Denki Kaminari**

 **Combat: 2  
** **Teamwork: 3  
** **Critical Thinking: 3  
** **Leadership Bonus: 0**

 _Okay,_ Kaminari thought. _Not terrible_. While he put himself out of commission with his 1,300,000 Volt shock, he did some decent damage against the Class B ambushers before coming to his team's aid in the defense of their base.

 **15.  
** **Mashirao Ojiro**

 **Combat: 3  
** **Teamwork: 4  
** **Critical Thinking: 3  
** **Leadership Bonus: 0**

Ojiro bowed his head. The mediocre grade was expected. Ojiro played it by the book and ended up fighting Shoda to a stalemate.

 **16.  
** **Ochako Uraraka**

 **Combat: 5  
** **Teamwork: 4  
** **Critical Thinking: 5  
** **Leadership Bonus: 3**

Ochako squealed when she saw her grade.

 _I did so well!_

"Excellent improvement over the semester, Uraraka. You and Tsuyu really learned from your internship with Ryugoku. In addition to showing exemplary combat abilities against the Class B students, you took initiative and researched possible locations for the Class B base."

"Next!"

 **17.  
** **Tenya Iida**

 **Combat: 3  
** **Teamwork: 2  
** **Critical Thinking: 4  
** **Leadership Bonus: 1**

"Iida," Aizawa began. "While you negatively affected your team by leaving them in the shipyard, you redeemed yourself near the end of the exercise when you fought Kendo so that Midoriya might escape with the flag. While you ultimately lost, you served your purpose to provide a distraction."

Iida nodded. "I'll try better next time, sir!"

"Next!"

 **18.  
** **Tsuyu Asui**

 **Combat: 5  
** **Teamwork: 4  
** **Critical Thinking: 5  
** **Leadership Bonus: 0**

Like Ochako, Asui had fought smart against their opponents, who held an extreme numerical advantage. Her actions against Honenuki had turned the tide of the shipyard battle for the better.

 **19.  
** **Mina Ashido**

 **Combat: 5  
** **Teamwork: 4  
** **Critical Thinking: 3  
** **Leadership Bonus: 0**

"Ashido," Aizawa began. "Nice improvement as well. You fought well against Shiozaki and Reiko, neutralising the latter's quirk, and you later worked with the others to defend the base."

Ashido beamed, remembering her triumphs.

"However," Aizawa continued, "against Reiko, you rushed into battle without informing your teammates of your status and location. While I understand that you needed to act quickly, you would have left Class A in a state of confusion had your whole team been captured without a trace."

 **20.  
** **Yuga Aoyama**

 **Combat: 3  
** **Teamwork: 3  
** **Critical Thinking: 5  
** **Leadership Bonus: 0**

Aoyama hadn't really done anything spectacular, but his quick application of his Navel Laser had saved his teammates when they were stuck in the stairwell to the second floor.

"Okay," Aizawa said, picking up his sleeping bag from the floor. "That's it! Enjoy your early break!"

"EARLY BREAK?"

"No need to tell me twice," Kaminari yelled as he donned his backpack. The boy sprinted out of the room, followed closely by Mina. The two were soon joined by the rest of the class.

"I'm not going to do anything until Sophomore year," Hagakure exclaimed happily.

"Yeah." Yaoyorozu cringed at her friend's words. "I might do some studying."

Midoriya looked down, dejected. He missed his beloved school already, and he was sure he was going to miss his classmates.

"Hey, Deku!" Ochako jumped in front of her friend. "We should keep in touch. And maybe hang out."

"Y-yeah, that sounds great." Midoriya turned red.

"I will do the same," Iida said. "If you don't mind my company, that is!"

"Awesome!"

Midoriya smiled. _What was I worrying about? My friends will keep me company, for sure!"_

As Iida followed his friends out UA's front doors, he noticed the Class B students doing the same, wearing varying expressions of disappointment. His eyes locked with Kendo's and the two class presidents stared at each other for a moment.

It was a well-fought battle. Class B had come _so_ close, and Kendo especially had shown real talent. Yet, still, after working so hard, Kendo lost. It was almost unfair. Both Class A and Class B made their fair share of mistakes.

 _Heh,_ Iida thought. _Aizawa would probably say life is_ _ **always**_ _unfair._

But still, as president, Iida wanted to try to set things straight between the two classes.

" _Good game,_ " he mouthed. Kendo's frown widened into a grin and gave the boy a thumbs-up.

"Next time," she shouted at him. "You'll lose, for sure!"

* * *

 ** **THE END****

* * *

 **I hope you enjoyed my first fic! I'm glad I was able to bring it to a close instead of leaving it.**

 **Since I enjoyed writing this one so much, I've decided to write another fic. It's darker, edgier, more serious, and it gives Izuku a new origin story! Keep an eye out!**

 **If you have any compliments or criticism, please leave a review. I'd like to know how I'm doing.**


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